by Garth Stein
“Hey, man, no problem,” said Mike. “What about Zoë?”
“Eve’s dad took her to their house and put her to bed,” replied Denny.
Mike nodded. The crickets were louder than the traffic from the nearby Interstate 405, but not by much. We listened to them, a concert of crickets, wind, leaves, cars, and fans on the roof of the hospital building.
Here’s why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never change the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.
I listened that night and I heard.
“How long will they keep Eve?” Mike asked.
“They might not even do a test,” said Denny. “They might just go in and take it out. Cancer or not, it’s still causing problems. The headaches, the nausea, the mood swings.”
“Sorry,” Mike said. “I’m . . . sorry.” He grabbed me by the scruff and gave me a shake. “Really rough,” he said. “I’d be freaking out right now if I were you.”
Denny stood up tall. For him. He wasn’t a tall guy. He was a Formula One guy. Well proportioned and powerful, but scaled down. A flyweight.
“I am freaking out,” he said.
Mike nodded thoughtfully.
“You don’t look it. I guess that’s why you’re such a good driver,” he said, and I looked at him quickly. That was just what I was thinking.
“You don’t mind stopping by my place and getting his stuff?”
Denny took out his key ring, picked through the bundle.
“The food is in the pantry. Give him a cup and a half. He gets three of those chicken cookies before he goes to bed—take his bed, it’s in the bedroom. And take his dog. Just say, ‘Where’s your dog?’ and he’ll find it, sometimes he hides it.”
He found the house key and held it out for Mike, letting the other keys dangle. “It’s the same for both locks,” he said.
“We’ll be fine,” Mike said. “Do you want me to bring you some clothes?”
“No,” Denny said. “I’ll go back in the morning and pack a bag if we’re staying.”
No words, then, just crickets, wind, traffic, fans blowing on the roof, a distant siren. “You don’t have to keep it inside,” Mike said. “You can let go. We’re in a parking lot.”
Denny looked up at Mike. “This is why she didn’t want to go to the hospital.”
“What?” Mike asked.
“This is what she was afraid of,” said Denny. Mike nodded, but clearly he didn’t understand what Denny was saying.
“What about your race next week?” he asked.
“I’ll call Jonny tomorrow and tell him I’m out for the season,” Denny said. “I have to be here.”
Mike took me to our house to get my things. I was humiliated when he said, “Where’s your dog?” I didn’t want to admit that I still slept with a stuffed animal. But I did. I loved that dog, and Denny was right, I did hide it during the day because I didn’t want Zoë to add it to her collection. And also, I was afraid of the virus that had possessed the zebra.
But I got my dog out of his hiding spot under the sofa and we climbed back into Mike’s Alfa and went to his house. His partner asked how it all went, and Mike brushed him off right away and poured himself a drink.
“That guy is bottled so tight,” Mike said. “He’s gonna have a heart attack or something.”
Mike’s partner Tony picked up my dog that I had dropped on the floor. “We have to take this, too?” he asked.
“Listen,” Mike sighed, “everyone needs a security blanket. What’s wrong with that?”
“It stinks,” Mike’s partner said. “I’ll wash it.” And he put it in the washing machine! My dog! He took the first toy that Denny ever gave me and stuck it into the washing machine . . . with soap! I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned. No one had ever handled my dog in such a way!
I watched through the glass window of the machine as it spun around and around, sloshing with the suds. And they laughed at me. Not meanly. They thought I was a dumb dog—all people do. They laughed and I watched and when it came out, they put it in the dryer with a towel, and I waited. And when it was dry, they took it out and gave it to me. Tony took it out and it was warm, and he handed it to me and said, “Much better, right?”
When Tony handed me my dog, I took it in my mouth out of respect. I took it to my bed because that’s what Denny would have wanted me to do. And I curled up with it. And the funny part? I liked it.
I liked my stuffed dog better clean than smelly, which was something I never would have imagined. But which gave me something I could hold on to. A belief that the center of our family could not be changed by a chance occurrence, an accidental washing, an unexpected illness. Deep in the center of our family existed a bond; Denny, Zoë, Eve, me, and even my stuffed dog. However things might change around us, we would always be together.
Chapter Nineteen
I was not always included, being a dog. I was not allowed into the hospital to hear the hushed conversations. To witness the doctor with the blue hat and blue gown whispering his opinions and misgivings. Revealing the clues they all should have seen, explaining the mysteries of the brain. No one confided in me. I was never consulted. Nothing was expected of me except that I do my business outside when called upon to do so, and that I stop barking when told to stop barking.
Eve stayed in the hospital for a long time. Weeks. Because there was so much for Denny to do, caring for both me and Zoë, as well as visiting Eve in the hospital whenever possible, he decided that the best plan was to start living by a system, rather than our usual spontaneous way of living.
At the end of the workday, Denny retrieved Zoë from camp and returned home to cook dinner while Zoë watched cartoons. After dinner, Denny gave me my food and then took Zoë to visit Eve. Later, they returned, Denny bathed Zoë, read her a story, and tucked her into bed. Weekends were spent largely at the hospital. It was not a very colorful way to live. My walks were infrequent, my trips to the dog park nonexistent. Little attention was paid to me by Denny or Zoë. But I was ready to make that sacrifice in the interest of Eve’s well-being. I vowed not to be a squeaky wheel in any way.
After two weeks of this pattern, Maxwell and Trish offered to keep Zoë for a weekend, so as to give Denny a bit of a break. They told him he looked sickly, that he should take a vacation from his troubles, and Eve agreed. “I don’t want to see you this weekend,” she said to him, at least that’s what he told Zoë and me. Denny had mixed feelings about the idea. I could tell as he packed Zoë’s overnight bag. He was hesitant to let Zoë go. But he did let her go, and then he and I were alone. And it felt very strange.
We did all the things we used to do. We went jogging. We ordered delivery pizza for lunch. We spent the afternoon watching a fantastic racing movie. After that, Denny took me to the Blue Dog Park that was a few blocks away, and he threw the ball for me. But even for that venture, our energy was wrong; a vicious dog got after me and was at my throat with bared teeth everywhere I moved. I couldn’t retrieve the tennis ball but was forced to stay close by Denny’s side.
It all felt wrong. The absence of Eve and Zoë was wrong. There was something missing in everything we did. After we had both eaten dinner, we sat together in the kitchen, fidgeting. There was nothing for us to do but fidget. Because while we were going through the motions, doing what we always used to do, there was no joy in it whatsoever.
Finally, Denny stood. He took me outside, and I urinated for him. He gave me my usual bedtime cookies, and then he said to me, “You be good.”
He said, “I have to go see her.” I followed him to the door; I wanted to go see her, too.
�
�No,” he said to me. “You stay here. They won’t let you into the hospital.”
I understood; I went to my bed and lay down.
“Thanks, Enzo,” he said. And then he left.
He returned a few hours later, in the darkness, and he silently climbed into his bed with a shiver before the sheets got warm. I lifted my head and he saw me.
“She’s going to be okay,” he said to me. “She’s going to be okay.”
Chapter Twenty
Zoë and me, playing in the backyard on a sunny afternoon. She made me wear the bumblebee wings she had worn the previous Halloween. She dressed herself in her pink ballet outfit with the puffy skirt and the leotard and tights. We went out into the backyard and ran around together until her pink feet were stained with dirt.
It was the Tuesday after her weekend with Maxwell and Trish, and by then she had thankfully lost the sour vinegar smell that clung to her whenever she spent time at the Twins’ house. Denny had left work early and picked up Zoë so they could go shopping for new sneakers and socks. When they got home, Denny cleaned the house while Zoë and I played. We danced and laughed and ran and pretended we were angels.
She called me over to the corner of the yard by the spigot. On the wood chips lay one of her Barbie dolls. She kneeled down before it. “You’re going to be okay,” she said to the doll. “Everything is going to be okay.”
She unfolded a dishcloth that she’d brought from the house. In the dishcloth were scissors, a Sharpie pen, and masking tape. She pulled off the doll’s head. She took the kitchen scissors and cut off Barbie’s hair, down to the plastic nub. She then drew a line on the doll’s skull, all the while whispering softly, “Everything’s going to be okay.”
When she was done, she tore off a piece of masking tape and put it on the doll’s head. She pressed the head back onto the neck stub and laid the doll down. We both stared at it. A moment of silence. “Now she can go to heaven,” Zoë said to me. “And I’ll live with Grandma and Grandpa.”
I was sad. Clearly, the weekend of rest Maxwell and Trish had offered Denny was a false one. I had no clear evidence, and yet I could sense it. For the Twins, it had been a working weekend, an effort to establish a plot. They were already sowing the seeds of their story, spinning their lies, foretelling a future they hoped would come true.
Chapter Twenty-One
Soon, Labor Day weekend came, and after that, Zoë was enrolled in school. “Real school,” as she called it. Kindergarten. And she was so excited to go. She picked out her clothes the night before her first day, bell-bottom jeans and sneakers and a bright yellow blouse. She had her backpack, her lunch box, her pencil case, her notebook. With great ceremony, Denny and I walked with her a block from our house to the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and we waited for the bus that would take her to her new elementary school. We waited with a few other kids and parents from the neighborhood.
When the bus came over the hill, we were all so excited.
“Kiss me now,” she said to Denny.
“Now?” he replied.
“Not when the bus is here. I don’t want Jessie to see.” Jessie was her best friend from preschool, who was going to be in the same kindergarten class. Denny obliged and kissed her before the bus had stopped.
“After school, you go to Extended Day,” he said. “Like we practiced yesterday at orientation. Remember?”
“Daddy!” she scolded.
Denny said, “I’ll pick you up after Extended Day. You wait in the classroom, and I’ll come and get you.”
“Daddy!” She made a stern face at him, and for a second I could have sworn she was Eve. The flashing eyes. The flared nostrils. The head cocked, ready for battle. She quickly turned and climbed onto the bus. Then, as she walked down the aisle, she turned and waved at us both before she took her seat next to her friend.
The bus pulled away and headed for school. “Your first?” another father asked Denny.
“Yeah,” Denny replied. “My only. You?”
“My third,” the man said. “But there’s nothing like your first. They grow up so fast.”
“That they do,” Denny said with a smile; we turned and walked home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was an evening on which Denny took me along to the hospital to visit Eve, though I didn’t get to go inside. After the visit, Zoë and I waited in the car while Maxwell and Trish joined Denny to talk on the pavement. Zoë was immersed in a book of mazes, something she loved to do; I listened carefully to the conversation. Everything they said made sense, but none of it added up properly in my mind. Maxwell and Trish did all of the talking.
“Of course, there has to be a nurse on duty, around the clock.”
“They work in shifts—”
“They work in shifts, but still, the one on duty takes breaks.”
“So someone needs to be there to help.”
“And since we’re always around . . .”
“We have nowhere to go—”
“And you have to work.”
“So it’s best.”
“Yes, it’s best.”
Denny nodded without conviction. He got into the car, and we drove off. “When’s Mommy coming home?” Zoë asked.
“Soon,” Denny said. We were crossing the floating bridge, the one Zoë used to call the “High 90,” when she was younger. “Mommy’s going to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a while,” Denny said. “Until she feels better. Is that okay with you?”
“I guess,” Zoë said. “Why?”
“It’ll be easier for—” He broke off. “It’ll be easier.”
A few days later, a Saturday, Zoë, Denny, and I went to Maxwell and Trish’s house. A bed had been set up in the living room. A large hospital bed that moved up and down and tilted and did all sorts of things by touching a remote control. It had a broad footboard from which hung a clipboard. There was also a nurse, a crinkly older woman who had a voice that sounded like she was singing whenever she spoke. And who didn’t like dogs, though I had no objection to her whatsoever. Immediately, the nurse started fretting about me. To my dismay, Maxwell agreed and Denny didn’t notice, so I was shoved outside into the backyard; thankfully, Zoë came to my rescue.
“Mommy’s coming!” Zoë told me. She was very excited and wore the plaid dress that she liked because it was so pretty. I felt her excitement, too, so I joined in with it. I embraced the festivity, a real homecoming. Zoë and I played; she threw a ball for me and I did tricks for her, and we rolled together in the grass. It was a wonderful day, the family all together again. It felt very special.
“She’s here!” Denny called from the back door, and Zoë and I rushed to see; this time I was allowed inside. Eve’s mother entered the house first, followed by a man in blue slacks and a yellow shirt with a logo on it. He wheeled in a white figure with dead eyes, a mannequin in slippers. Maxwell and Denny lifted the figure and placed it in the bed. The nurse tucked it in and Zoë said, “Hi, Mommy,” and all this happened before it even entered my mind that this strange figure was not a dummy, not a mock-up used for practice, but Eve.
Her head was covered with a stocking cap. Her cheeks were sunken, her skin, sallow. She lifted her head and looked around. “I feel like a Christmas tree,” she said. “In the living room, everyone standing around me expecting something. I don’t have any presents.” Uncomfortable chuckles from the onlookers.
And then she looked at me directly. “Enzo,” she said. “Come here.” I wagged my tail and approached cautiously. I hadn’t seen her since she went into the hospital, and I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. It seemed to me the hospital had made her much sicker than she really was.
“He doesn’t know what to think,” Denny said for me.
“It’s okay, Enzo,” she said.
She dangled her hand off the side of the bed, and I bumped it with my nose. I didn’t like any of this, all the new furniture, Eve looking limp and sad, people standing around like Christmas without the presents. None of i
t seemed right. So even though everyone was staring at me, I shuffled over to Zoë and stood behind her, looking out the windows into the backyard, which was dappled with sunlight.
“I think I’ve offended him by being sick,” she said.
That was not what I meant at all. My feelings were so complicated, I have difficulty explaining them clearly even today, after I have lived through it and had time to think about it. All I could do was move to her bedside and lie down before her like a rug.
“I don’t like seeing me like this either,” she said.
The afternoon went on forever. Finally the dinner hour came, and Maxwell, Trish, and Denny poured themselves cocktails and the mood lifted greatly. An old photo album of Eve as a child was taken out from hiding and everyone laughed while the smell of garlic and oil floated from the kitchen, where Trish cooked the food. Eve showered with the help of the nurse. When she emerged from the bathroom in one of her own dresses and not the hospital gown and robe, she looked almost normal. Except there was a darkness behind her eyes, a look like she had given up. She tried to read Zoë a book, but she said she couldn’t focus well enough, so Zoë tried her best to read to Eve, and her best was fairly good. I wandered into the kitchen, where Denny was again talking with Trish and Maxwell.
“We really think Zoë should stay with us,” Maxwell said, “until . . .”
“Until . . . ,” Trish echoed, standing at the stove with her back to us.
So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is made of looks and gestures. Trish’s robotic repeating of the single word “until” revealed everything about her state of mind.
“Until what?” Denny demanded. I could hear the irritation in his voice. “How do you know what’s going to happen? You’re condemning her to something before you even know.”
Trish dropped her frying pan onto the burner with a loud clatter and began to sob. Maxwell wrapped his arms around her and enveloped her in his embrace. He looked over at Denny.