A Girl Like You

by vinnie Kinsella

“I don’t want time to pass!” I said angrily, pulling away from him. “I don’t want to forget what she was like, what we did together, how much I love her. I saw her this morning! I don’t want to think about time going by until I haven’t seen her for months. I can’t handle that. I can’t.”

  Eddie took my hands in his. “I’m so sorry, honey. So sorry. Wherever she is now, her heart is strong and she is running in the sun. She would hate to see you suffer like this.”

  “All right,” I said before turning away and going inside my house.

  It was unthinkable that I would sleep in my bed without Penny. Madison made up the living room couch with sheets and blankets and pillows.

  “I’m staying over,” Maddy said.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking. “But I only have one couch.”

  “Ian’s got it all figured out.”

  Ian lugged over the air mattress he used for camping, from his room upstairs. I watched dully as he used a small pump to inflate the double bed mattress on the living room floor for Madison and him to sleep.

  “Voilà,” he said, waving his hand. I was grateful he was distracted for a few minutes in the house of grief.

  “You guys must be hungry,” I said, realizing it was long past dinner time. “Can I make you something?”

  “Mom, we should be making you dinner,” Maddy said.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just not hungry.”

  “Tea, then?”

  “Tea would be good.”

  But when she brought the steaming cup to me, I couldn’t take a single sip because my stomach was still churning, twisted as if I wouldn’t even be able to swallow without it all coming back up.

  We didn’t know what else to do, so I crawled under the blankets on the couch and the kids got into sleeping bags on the air mattress. It was unbearably quiet.

  “Wow, Madd, I haven’t slept in the same room as you in forever,” Ian said.

  “Feels kinda nice,” Madison replied.

  “I remember when you were six, Maddy, and had your own room and Ian was so desperate to be with you—he would wait until you were sleeping, then sneak in his blanket and pillow and sleep on the floor next to your bed.”

  “No!” Ian said. “I left my warm bed to sleep on her floor?”

  “I kinda remember that,” Maddy said.

  “Another time you had a sleepover with your friends, and everyone was in sleeping bags in the living room, and you wouldn’t let Ian sleep down there with you. But in the middle of the night, he brought down his blankets and slept on the kitchen floor, just to feel like he was part of things.”

  “OK, even worse! You let me sleep on the cold, hard kitchen floor?”

  “I knew you were there, but I didn’t kick you out. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “When you were a baby, Ian, your sister used to climb into your crib to sleep with you. I have pictures of you two somewhere.”

  I hadn’t known how uncomfortable the couch was until I was lying down on it. I reached behind my pillow to plump it up and heard something squeak. When I pulled it out, it was one of Penny’s favorite chew toys, a green alligator that squeaked when you pinched its tail. I held the toy to my face and sobbed into it until Madison took it away from me.

  “I want it—I want to keep it!”

  “I’ll put it someplace safe,” she said, leaving the room.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom.” Ian was crying quietly, his shoulders shaking.

  “Come down with us, Mom,” Maddy said when she came back to the living room.

  So all of us, just the three of us now, lay side by side on the air mattress, holding on to each other for dear life, until the sun went down and darkness set in, obliterating everything but our shared grief.

  79

  Ian and Maddy were still sleeping early the next morning, so I rolled carefully off the air mattress and stumbled to my feet. I was so light-headed I had to hold on to the wall and make my way into the kitchen. I opened the cabinet and pulled out a mug, but my stomach turned over when I thought of making coffee or brewing tea.

  It was a twenty-minute drive to the salon, but when I got there, I realized it wouldn’t be open for another hour. I reclined the seat of my car and closed my eyes, but all I could picture was Pen wearing the little “hug a dog” shirt to stay warm. When I took it off, her fur was always matted down and she shook herself like dogs do after a bath, until her hair stood up, all frizzed out. Then she would look at me as if I’d done her a great indignity by messing her up. She was always such a girly-girl, just like Maddy.

  When Madison was in elementary school, she wore her hair long and down her back. She liked it braided, but first I had to work a comb through the snarls. I’d sprayed on detangler until her strands were damp. She’d always complained and pulled away from the comb, making it even more difficult.

  “Maddy, all over the world right now there are little girls getting their hair combed by their mothers, and all of them hate it,” I told her. “But when it’s over, their hair looks pretty all day long.”

  She’d accepted that, and all too soon, she was doing her own hair. I missed those mornings helping her get ready for school.

  I may have dozed a bit in the car. When I opened my eyes, the mall lights were on and I could go in.

  “I want it short,” I told the stylist.

  It was the same young woman who’d worked miracles on me just a couple of months earlier. Back when I wanted to look fabulous to go out and start dating. I felt so angry at myself now—I’d wasted time on my appearance instead of spending it with Pen. I’d spent hours waiting for replies to my online messages, as if that mattered. I’d cried over men. Over men! My grief now was crushing. This was loss. This was anger at the universe. Everything else was infinitesimal and far, far away.

  “How short?” the stylist asked.

  “Short short.”

  “You have such pretty hair—I hate to see it all go,” she said, pursing her plum-colored lips. “Let’s start off with shoulder-length.”

  Still dizzy, I closed my eyes and listened to the shears clipping away. My mind was stuck on replay; all I could picture was Penny waiting for me on the kitchen floor.

  When the kids were little, they were both scared at night, even after bedtime stories and checking for monsters in the closet and under beds. I used to rub their backs and sing, but as they grew older and their lives became more complicated, their worries became larger than what was under the bed. I’d always told them their thoughts were like a tape recording playing over and over again, until the worries were engrained in their minds.

  “Replace it with something good,” I’d told them. “Instead of fretting over the math test tomorrow, picture yourself somewhere safe and peaceful where you feel relaxed and happy.”

  For both of them, their happy place was the beach at low tide.

  Adam and I had taken the kids every August to Maine for a week, even when Ian was a baby and we had to lug in a pop-up tent to screen him from the sun, change diapers on a towel, feed him baby peaches and carrots from tiny jars with a rubber-tipped spoon. By the following summer, Ian had been on the go, crawling away from us toward the crashing waves of the ocean, or following flocks of seagulls ready to bite his little toes.

  Madison had thrown a handful of Cheetos once to feed the birds and they descended in alarming numbers on our beach towels, scaring the hell out of her. But Ian held up his baby fists, shaking them at the birds as if to defend her, her little hero. I remember getting annoyed with Adam for taking pictures with his cell instead of rushing to scare off the birds.

  My thoughts were already stuck on the image of Penny lying on her side near the kitchen door, her legs crossed so prettily at her ankles. I tried to distract myself with images of the beach, the birth of my kids, a particularly amazing Christmas. Then I thought about the day we got Pen from a friend whose Yorkies had puppies.

  The puppies were loud and raucous, trying desperately to reach us to be p
icked up and held. They had formed a dog pyramid, each standing on another’s shoulders. Down at the very bottom was a tiny girl dog waiting for the other dogs to calm down. When they did, she looked up at us, wagging her little tail excitedly, not barking at all, just staring up at us, and that was it. We all knew we belonged together.

  In four years, Penny had seen me through my divorce from Bryan, watching the kids grow up and need me less and less, several thwarted relationships, a new job, days in the sun and rain, nights when she licked my tears and settled herself against my legs to tell me I wasn’t alone.

  “You save my life every day,” I used to tell her before we fell asleep. Now it was up to me to save myself, something I was completely unprepared to do.

  “A little shorter,” I told the stylist.

  I didn’t know why it was so urgent to get my hair cut off. All I could think of was having it be as low maintenance as possible. No more tons of product. No more fuss. Without Pen, nothing else mattered, least of all my own appearance. I left the salon with a short bob that I could wash and air-dry and never think about, which was exactly what I was looking for. The world felt like a different place, and I was a different person.

  80

  Maddy called my office and told them I was taking a few sick days.

  “Joe said to tell you they’re all very sorry,” she said when she got off the phone.

  I knew it was time to call Bryan. I wanted to wait until I could tell him without sobbing, because we had promised one another long ago to not break down in front of each other. But that could take months, and he needed to know now.

  It was around bedtime, but I dialed his number. This wasn’t something I could text him about.

  “Jess? What’s wrong?” Bry sounded alarmed already.

  “Hey,” was all I could manage. “How are you?”

  “I’m OK, but what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Penny,” I said, trying hard to hold back the tears. “She’s gone.”

  “You mean lost? Run away? It’s not like her to leave your side.”

  I started flat-out crying. “No Bry, she passed away. She died.”

  There was a long pause from the other end of the line. I could hear Bryan taking deep breaths. I could picture him pacing, taking long strides across the room, then back again.

  “Jesus,” he said at last. “Not Penny.”

  I had no response because he was right. Not Penny.

  “Are you guys OK?” I could hear a break in his voice and knew he was trying not to cry. He and Penny had always been close, wrestling on the floor, playing tug-of-war with her chew toys, running around the backyard.

  “We’re all right. Just trying to get through the days.” I lay down in bed next to the pillow that still smelled like Penny.

  “What can I do to help?”

  Nothing, I thought. No one could do anything to help.

  “Tell you what,” Bryan said, his voice a little less shaky. “I can come up there. If I leave in the morning, I’ll be there tomorrow, middle of the night.”

  I closed my eyes. It was just like Bryan to want to make things easier on the kids and me. But I thought if I saw him, and went into his arms, I would break down even more by leaning on him. I had to try and get through this, the kids and me, even though nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing.

  “Thank you for saying that, but you shouldn’t do that.”

  “I want to help.”

  “You do help, just by knowing how much we love her—all of us, including you—and by remembering all the good times we had with her.”

  “I don’t think I have a picture of her,” Bryan said, his voice shaky again. “Can you send me one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Promise you’ll call if you need anything?”

  “Promise.”

  I’d avoided looking through the photo gallery on my cell, because I knew it was full of pictures of Pen: Penny in a little Santa suit, in a glow-in-the-dark skeleton Halloween costume, Penny on her birthday eating a doggie treat shaped like a cupcake, rolling over for someone to rub her tummy. Sleeping at the edge of my bed.

  Down at the end of my gallery, I found pictures of Penny and Bryan on the front porch, sitting side by side, both squinting in the sun as I called their names to take a photo. After that she had crawled on his lap and licked his nose, a slobbery dog kiss, and he’d wiped his face on his sleeve. But she kept kissing, and he never pushed her away.

  81

  Three days melted away, three nights spent wide awake. I was still sleeping on the couch. I spent a long time sitting on the kitchen floor in the spot where Penny had lain waiting for me.

  I realized staying home brought no relief, and work might be a distraction. That, and I was using up all my sick time.

  I got dressed and drove in to work on auto-pilot.

  The men were talking when I went into the office, but quickly fell silent.

  “Good morning, Jess,” Sal said, standing up to greet me.

  Wes, Paulie, and Joe also stood up and for a terrible moment I worried they were going to hug me, and that would send me right back out the door.

  “Morning,” I said, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

  I went behind the counter to hang up my coat.

  On my desk was a small bag from the bakery. Inside was a fresh cinnamon bun. “Your favorite,” Joe said.

  It was true, cinnamon buns were the one thing I couldn’t resist when the guys made a run to Brew Coffee. Next to the bakery bag was a card in a pink envelope. There was a pawprint with angel wings on the cover. Inside the card was the message: Your dog is wagging its tail in your heart—that’s why it hurts so much. Please accept our deepest sympathies. It was signed by Joe, Wes, Paulie, and Sal.

  It was the most touching card I’d received since the kids were little and brought home Valentines for me made with doilies and construction paper hearts cut with safety scissors.

  Tears sprang to my eyes and I tried to choke out a thank you to the men.

  “It’s OK, missy.” Wes waved away my attempts to talk.

  I noticed a member of the group was missing.

  “Where’s Beef Jerky today?”

  Wes looked uncomfortable. “Thought I’d leave him home for a while. Didn’t want to upset you.”

  “It wouldn’t upset me. It would make me happy to see him.”

  “Then I’ll bring him tomorrow,” he said, smiling widely.

  I went into the back office to find the birth certificate folder, which Joe always misfiled, banging my elbow on the cabinet as I slid the drawer open. It was suddenly too much effort to stay composed. I leaned my head into the musty genealogy books, pulling my cardigan closely around my chest where my broken heart was.

  “Hey, girl, you OK?” Sal asked from the doorway, peering inside.

  “I’m good,” I said, trying to steady my voice.

  “Okaaaay,” Sal drew out the word. “Can we do anything at all to help?” He gestured out toward the table, where the other men were staring intently at us.

  “No, thanks. I just need a minute.”

  “You need to talk? We’re good listeners.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “OK, you just take your time.”

  I didn’t get much paperwork done, but just making it to 5:00 felt like a big step, and the men were actually a welcome distraction. But as soon as I got inside my car, the rage spilled over again and I pounded the steering wheel with my fists, screaming and yelling at the universe.

  Was I going to make it without my girl? I had no idea how.

  82

  Eddie went online and found a pet bereavement support group. It met twice a month at the animal shelter in Ashton, the largest ASPCA in the area.

  “I can go with you,” Eddie said as I got ready to go on Wednesday night.

  “It’s OK,” I said, putting on my coat. “I’ve gotta do this alone. I feel like I should.”

  The shelter was a long, low brick building, mostly
dark at night, but one room was brightly lit, so I headed there. There was a large circle of metal chairs in the room, pictures of pets all over the walls, and the floor was tiled with white squares and purple paw prints. A tall woman with crazy curly hair clapped her hands to get our attention.

  “Please take seats, everyone,” she said. “I’m Sandra, and I’ll be facilitating the group tonight.”

  I took a chair and settled in. The chair was cold, so I sat on my coat. When I looked around, I saw people of all ages—mostly couples, but a few singles like me. I squinted at Sandra to see if I could decipher her aura, but everything looked gray.

  “I see a few new faces in the group, so I want to welcome you,” Sandra said. “For starters, I want to review the way our time together works. You can talk or just listen. I’m an MSW specializing in grief issues. I’ll do my best to address your questions and concerns. Most importantly, trust that this is a place to share anything you choose to about your pet, because we’ve all experienced loss.”

  I was grateful we didn’t have to go around the circle and say our name. I wasn’t ready to do any talking yet.

  “When our pets pass over the rainbow bridge, they join the animal spirit of the universe,” Sandra said. “There, they meet the Divine and are fully renewed. The animal spirit is everywhere, across the land and oceans and sky.”

  I never liked that “rainbow bridge” metaphor, but the possibility of becoming a part of a larger spirit was a comfort to me.

  Most of us in the small circle of chairs had been crying when we walked into the community room at the shelter. Most of us still were.

  Sandra had brought along her dog, a black lab she named Mr. Leprechaun, because he liked to dance. The lab padded around from chair to chair for neck scratches, but when he came to me, I couldn’t touch him. I didn’t want any dog but my Penny.

  “If you’re still suffering in three months, as if the death had just happened, you may be having a major depressive episode, and you should get professional help,” Sandra said.

  OK. So, should I mark my calendar for July and hope the despair would just drop away? Like magic?