Dog Lived (and So Will I) (5 page)

My mind fought for control. She merely asked a polite question.
Answer
her.

My gut screamed back.
But
with
what? What can you possibly say?

My family is complicated, even by Southern California standards. I am never adept at answering questions about them. Even simple questions like how many brothers and sisters I had could stop me cold while I considered how much information the questioner could handle or likely wanted.

I hadn’t grown up in a close or intact family. My parents had each married several times, and all totaled I had nine siblings of the step, half, and whole varieties. I’d had two sets of parents for most of my life. But those sets changed with the decades, bringing new supporting characters. I often said that we did not have a family tree so much as family ground cover—we spread outward and our roots are not deep.

So, had Chris met my family? Well, yes…sort of. Some of them. I was sure my face now matched my outfit. Egg-white. My parents had both fallen into the “need to know” category over the past couple of months.

Chris came to my rescue. “I have met her parents. They are very nice people.”

“So what did your parents think?” Trudi asked, all polish and poise. What I heard was “Your parents also think this is ridiculous, correct?”

What did my parents think? I was forty-two years old. If my parents had cared whom I dated as a teenager (since they themselves were only in their thirties then and quite busy with their own dates, there is only limited evidence of this), they were long past caring whom I dated as an adult. Also, they were sitting in glass houses when it came to throwing relationship stones. I was gaining a new appreciation of this nonjudgmental aspect of my family.

The truth was, when Chris met my parents, it was very simple. Casual.

When it came to my father, my brother caused a “need to know” situation by making a surprise visit from Missouri only a few weeks earlier. Chris and I had about an hour’s notice to get out of bed, get showered, and get presentable before my brother and father were both on my doorstep. Surprise, indeed. I think mine was the larger surprise, although Jay (my younger brother but still with ten years seniority over Chris) and Dad both recovered quickly enough to make jokes about curfews, my having to cut up Chris’s food, and my serving alcohol to a minor. My father called later both to say “how young is he?” and “he seems like a great guy and you seem happy.” This was followed quickly by “just don’t get arrested” and laughter.

When it came to my mother, it was Seamus who created the need for her to know about Chris.

After several months of Chris and me sharing our weekends home with only Seamus, we got the idea that it was time to spend a weekend away, just the two of us, heresy though that seemed to a certain beagle.

Seamus, however, presented a problem for us. I hated the idea of putting him in a boarding facility. He was a dog that needed and got a lot of companionship. I didn’t think he’d do well with a small pen and only two ten-minute exercise sessions a day. The solution required a confession.

I babysat my mom and stepdad’s dog Barbee on occasion, both in my previous life as a married person with a large yard and three (then two) beagles, and once or twice in my new life in a rented condo with one needy beagle and a secret boyfriend. Occasionally, my mother had returned the favor by watching Seamus, like when I went to Missouri for Christmas. But my mother was not dumb. If I started leaving Seamus with her on weekends, she’d want to know where I was going. And how many times can a forty-something-year-old woman head out for “girls’ weekends” before an intervention is staged?

I ’fessed up to my mother and asked her to watch Seamus for me when Chris and I went to San Diego for the infamous Easter weekend that eventually provoked Trudi’s outing of our relationship. I told my mother we’d stop by Sunday evening to pick up Seamus and have Easter dinner. And yes, she’d meet Chris. I was hoping this dog-sitting sharing arrangement would work out. Chris and I had started planning a summer trip to Barcelona.

My mother and stepfather Ted lived in a town called Yucaipa, about twenty-five miles from me in the foothills where the weather is cooler than it is in Riverside. I dropped Seamus off on a Friday afternoon before heading down to San Diego with Chris later that evening.

Seamus and their dog Barbee, an Australian Shepherd mix, got along well enough but were very different dogs. Barbee was calm and serious. She also constantly patrolled the perimeter of their yard, which Seamus thought was great fun at first. He merrily chased after her, howling his excitement for the entire neighborhood to hear. Repeatedly. Shepherds herd. Beagles howl. It’s not such a good combination, my mother learned.

Eventually Seamus tired of the game and wanted only to be safe and warm in the house. In the kitchen, to be precise. I had forgotten to warn my mother that Seamus had learned to open cupboards. In my house Chris installed three different types of baby locks on the cupboard below my kitchen sink (where the trash can was) before we found one that was beagle-proof. Seamus could move a lever up, press and release, and even twist a lock if there were food in the trash can behind the cupboard door. He could not, we eventually learned, figure out how to slide a bar to the right (and most of my human houseguests can’t either). His specialty seemed to be a trash assault after an accumulation of at least three mornings of coffee grinds, eggshells, and grease-soaked anything in the trash. We’d come downstairs in the morning to find yesterday’s breakfast strewn across the kitchen floor with a trail of coffee grinds leading to Seamus’s bed.

Barbee, on the other hand, was a dog for whom one could leave a bowl of food out all day and eventually she’d eat it when she was hungry. Unless Seamus got to it first. And he always did. He also got to my mother’s trash can which, from his viewpoint, had a clear “Seamus Eats Here” sign hanging over it. With its gaping, lidless mouth, its tasty chicken morsels, and its position in the back pantry, unguarded, unlocked, it was obviously free for the taking. My mother swears he swallowed the chicken bones whole.

Mom and Ted also learned that Seamus, like Chris and me, prefers warmth and late nights, disdaining cold and mornings. They had a difficult time and endured no small amount of beagle grumbling attempting to wake Seamus for a walk at six in the morning. But when my mother and Barbee left without Seamus for their walk and returned to find that Seamus had risen long enough to use the dining room as a bathroom, she instituted the mandatory morning walk rule.

When Chris and I arrived to pick up Seamus after our weekend away, Seamus’s antics had seemed to take all the pressure off that particular “meet the parents” moment. My mother only briefly said hello to both Chris and me before she said, pursing her lips and looking in Seamus’s direction, “He’s quite a dog.” My stepfather rolled his eyes. Seamus was seated on their couch—their off-white formal living room couch—staring wide-eyed and wagging his tail.

Easter dinner was made easier (and quicker) by tales of Seamus—Chris, it seemed, could match my mother’s anecdotes of bad beagle behavior and then raise her one. Or several. I think my mom and stepdad decided that if Chris was willing to put up with Seamus, he was probably a pretty good guy, though they also called later to say, “How young is he?”

So yes, Chris had met my parents. And yes, they liked him. Why couldn’t I just say that to his mother? Why did I have to be reading so much into what might be perfectly innocent, friendly questions?

Oh, like hell they were friendly. These were loaded questions intended to sniff out the enemy. And I was the enemy. My gut was fierce in its opinion.

But my mind was desperate.
Wait. Stop. You’re being paranoid. They’re very nice people. Look, she’s smiling at you. He’s refilling the champagne. They can see their son is happy. That’s all a parent can want, right? Right?

Chris had been raised in a privileged background, and his parents were used to knowing and controlling every aspect of their three children’s lives. Heavy emphasis on children. It had worked out very well so far—Chris was a very polite, very well-mannered, private-schooled, Princeton-educated, oldest son of an intact, close-knit family. Chris and I had spent plenty of time soaking in bubbles talking about our families, so I knew that in his family decisions were made on high and handed down and had always been so. But he was nearly thirty years old now. He could make his own decisions. All that should matter is that he’s happy. I took a deep breath.

“Both of my parents loved him. Of course. What’s not to love?” I smiled brightly, but under the table my hand was reaching for Chris’s thigh, as much a sign of affection as to stabilize myself. Or maybe I was claiming him.

“Well, I hope so. We like to think we raised a good son.” Trudi smiled back at me. I don’t think she could extend a claim on Chris from across the table. At least not physically.

Except for my own internal monologue, I was unharmed by the end of brunch. I admitted as much to Chris. His parents were polite and civil. Although I knew I was being “checked out,” I did not feel harshly judged. Or, more to the point, I felt I passed whatever test I was being given. I did not look embarrassingly older than Chris, or even embarrassing. (I suspected they were expecting someone more along the lines of a truck-stop waitress or a stripper.) I did know which utensil to use when; I didn’t drool or chew with my mouth open; and, I believe, I remembered to say both “please” and “thank you.” I talked about my legal career in the hope that Chris’s parents would see I wasn’t a gold digger. Although Chris and I laughed about that concept (he had no gold of his own and I had no discernible digging skills since he was the pursuer and I was the one who resisted the relationship for so long), we suspected it was on their minds. I thought I’d alleviated that concern.

At the end of brunch, as we walked out of the restaurant, Trudi said to me, “I don’t know why he kept you a secret for so long.”

I was at a loss for an answer that would be socially acceptable. “Well, because we really just thought we were having mind-blowing sex, not getting into a relationship” did not seem appropriate to say to his mother; “Moms put the fear of God into me and thus I wanted to avoid this for as long as possible” also seemed, well, not quite right. I finally muttered something like, “Well, we’ve met now.” Because, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m a conversational genius under pressure.

I next saw Chris’s parents in June when they hosted a thirtieth birthday dinner for Chris at a restaurant in Santa Monica. We left the party at ten in the evening to catch a red-eye flight to Puerto Vallarta for four days—my gift to Chris. Although they were aware of the trip ahead of time, I vaguely felt I was kidnapping him as we left.

“There’s still food. People are still here,” his mother said.

“They’re not going to hold the plane for us. Besides, these clowns will stay here as long as you keep the bar tab open,” Chris said, referencing his friends.

I fought the compulsion to explain that despite what they may have been thinking, it is not, in fact, illegal to cross international borders with a thirty-year-old. But I decided I was being paranoid. They probably just wanted to spend more time with their son. Still, despite an enjoyable evening, my comfort level with his parents, never high to begin with, sank with each step I took out of the restaurant, my arm linked in Chris’s. I did not see them again for the rest of the summer.

In early fall, I moved into my own townhome. I’d bought a place in the same complex where I’d been renting, only this one had been remodeled and upgraded in ways I never would have thought about. There were maple floors and cupboards, brushed nickel accents, modern lighting that accented the artwork, a built-in bar and wine refrigerator, and a sound system throughout the home. There was no massive tub, but there was a hot tub on the back patio with a stunning view of the city. When he saw it, before I made the offer on it, Chris dubbed it the “sleek and elegant cougar den” (making light of the many cougar jokes I’d endured), which was thereafter how we referred to it. It was perfect for me. I bought it furnished. All I needed to add were my books, my artwork, and, of course, my dog.

Moving day was typical of the complications that existed in my life. Not only did both of my parents come to help, but my ex-husband offered to as well since I was giving him back some of “our” furniture that I no longer needed. My mother spent nearly the entire day keeping Seamus under control (no easy task) and avoiding my father (a much easier task since he was likewise avoiding her). My ex-husband spent the day avoiding Chris by cleaning my already clean new townhome down the hill from my rented townhome where Chris was loading boxes of books into my brother-in-law’s truck. One stepbrother showed up long enough to pick up some of the furniture I no longer needed and my ex didn’t want, move a few boxes in exchange for the furniture, and then disappear again. My stepmother arrived with lunch and some friends of my father’s who were really too old to be moving boxes and thus didn’t bother.

And I was blissfully content with it all.

Well, I was until I went upstairs after my father and a friend had removed my mattress and box spring, thus emptying out the last of the items in my bedroom in the rented townhome. Chris was right behind me.

I stopped as I entered the room, shocked and mortified. “Do you think they saw it?” I said.

“The shiny, purple condom wrapper in the middle of the otherwise empty floor? No, how could they?” Chris said. He laughed. I did not.

“How humiliating.”

“Well, at least they know we practice safe sex.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what they were thinking.”

“It could have been worse. It could have been your ex helping your dad move the mattress.”

Chris is better than I am at recognizing the small mercies in life.

After everyone left, we were alone in the sleek and elegant cougar den, grinning like children. We celebrated and relaxed our weary muscles in the hot tub, of course.

Seamus was equally smitten with our new place. Since the back patio opened to a hillside frequented by coyotes, he was not allowed in the backyard. Luckily, he had unfettered access to the front courtyard, courtesy of a doggie door installed by the previous owner in just the right size. The courtyard had a gate off the street, keeping Seamus safely inside but allowing him to be the first to greet visitors. He immediately began running in and out of the house through his own door on a whim, sometimes stretching out on the chaise lounge chairs outside in the courtyard and watching us through the French doors as we watched movies on the new flat-screen TV with surround sound. The place was perfect for all three of us, and we adjusted quickly. Chris began spending even more time at my place, as his job transitioned to contract work.

I unpacked boxes during the weekday evenings, feeling unhurried and saving the weekends for Chris. My life was here and settling in. There was no need to rush anything. Sometimes it took days just to get one box of books unpacked and shelved.

Seamus was about two years old by then. He still acted like a puppy. He greeted me, howled, jumped, whirled, and twirled each night when I came home from work and did much the same when I left in the mornings. Seamus responded to Chris similarly—howling, jumping, and demanding cuddles on arrival.

There was only one small adjustment to the new house that didn’t go well for Seamus.

One evening as Chris and I were reading by the fireplace, lounging on the couch in the living room, Seamus emitted a low growl. A growl I hadn’t heard since he’d first met Chris. Seamus stood in the middle of the living room, his back to us, facing into the dining room.

“What is it, buddy?”

He leaned his head to the left, then stepped left and growled again.

“What do you see?” I stood, but I could see nothing in the dining room.

Seamus stepped to his right. Then backed up. His growl got louder.

“Maybe there’s a mouse in there,” Chris said.

“Ewwww! Can you go look?”

Chris stood, and Seamus howled. But when Chris walked into the dining room, Seamus quieted.

“I don’t see anything.” He turned back to face Seamus and bent down to pet him. Seamus stepped out of his reach and looked around Chris, back into the dining room.

AAAAAARRROOOOOOOOO!

“Well, something’s there.” I walked over to Seamus and knelt down beside him, trying to match my gaze to his.

And then I saw what Seamus saw. As Seamus moved slowly to the left, back a step and to the right, then forward again, his neck extended and eyes wide, I began to laugh.

“He sees his reflection in the mirror.”

“You’re kidding me?” Chris laughed too. He joined me on the floor behind Seamus, a vantage point that made it clear that Seamus was staring into the mirrored wall in the dining room.

“Who’s that handsome stranger, Seamus?” Chris said. “Who is that?”

Seamus barked at his image. And we howled in laughter.

“He has a problem with handsome strangers,” I said.

Seamus spent the next half hour working up his courage to approach the handsome stranger. When he finally did, putting his nose right up to the mirror, he must have decided the lack of smell emanating from the handsome stranger indicated he meant no harm. He walked away. And he never again approached or barked at the mirror.

• • •

In early November, Seamus’s groomer Nancy pulled up in her customized motor home for his regular appointment. Though he didn’t care much for being lifted off his feet, Seamus loved Nancy and the attention that came with a bath—as long as his face didn’t get wet and the blow drying was minimal. I handed his leash to Nancy and returned to the house.

A half hour later Nancy was at the front gate with Seamus.

“I wanted to show you something,” she said.

I opened the courtyard gate. Seamus bounded in, smelling fresh and looking jaunty with an orange bow imprinted with horns of plenty attached to his collar. Nancy bent down and turned Seamus around so his rear end was facing me.

“Can you see that bump on the right side of his anus?”

Not somewhere I usually look, but I looked. I could see a bump about the size of a mosquito bite. “Yes, I think. It looks like an insect bite?”

“Yes, it does. But it was there the last time I groomed him and it hasn’t gone away.”

Ah. “And it’s been ten weeks. So it’s not a bite?”

“No. It’s something else.” She let go of Seamus and unhooked his leash. Seamus ran howling back toward the house, scooted through the doggie door, and disappeared.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know if it’s anything. But unusual bumps on a dog should be checked out just like with people,” Nancy said. She stood up and put the forty dollars I’d handed her into her pocket. “I’d get it checked.”

I took Seamus for an exam the next day.

• • •

Dr. Davis picked Seamus up and steadied him on the metal exam table. Seamus turned his head to me with those big, caramel beagle eyes.
Really? You’re going to let him poke me there?
He moved his hind end away from the doctor. I moved him back into position. He sat. I prodded him to stand up again. He turned and looked, wide-eyed, at me again.
Seriously?

“It’s probably nothing,” Dr. Davis said. “I know you’re worried, with all you’ve been through with dogs lately, but I really don’t think this is anything. I’ll remove it and have it biopsied to be safe.”

“Biopsy? You think it’s cancer?” For some reason, the word
biopsy
said “cancer” to me. Were biopsies done to look for any other disease?

“No. Hold on. I don’t think so. He’s young and sturdy. This could just be a wart. But I’d like to be safe and check it out anyway.”

I scheduled a surgery to remove what looked like a wart on a beagle’s anus as soon as an appointment was available. As it turned out, the first available surgery date was right before Chris and I were to leave for Cabo San Lucas. We’d been invited by clients of mine to be their guests. Although I hadn’t yet figured out how to refer to Chris (“boyfriend” was too young, “lover” too personal), I’d come to terms with being a couple enough to even share the relationship with clients, so I’d accepted the generous offer. With Seamus now needing surgery though, I considered canceling the trip.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Go. Have a good time. He’s a young, sturdy dog, and I seriously doubt this is anything. You can leave him here with me,” Dr. Davis said.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

I called Chris for his opinion as well.

“If he can stay with Dr. Davis, he’ll be in better care than he would be at home anyway, won’t he?”

“Well, maybe. But he won’t be as comfortable.”

“It’s only four days total. Two days more than he’d be in the hospital anyway for this.”

“True. And I do know they take great care of him.”

Following the surgery, Seamus would need to be confined to a small space and wearing one of those large, plastic cones of shame to prevent him from chewing out his delicately placed stitches. That would be more easily accomplished by leaving him with Dr. Davis, I knew. Dr. Davis and his staff were far more immune to those pleading beagle eyes than I could ever hope to be. They’d leave the cone on, and he’d heal more quickly. And it was only four days, I repeated to myself.

Chris and I headed to Cabo San Lucas, where we spent a leisurely four days lounging in a cabana on the beach. The chips and guacamole, cervezas and margaritas, and anything else we wanted, readily available and served cabana-side, helped dissipate my concerns. Dr. Davis emailed me that Seamus made it through surgery fine, and I relaxed into my vacation. I read two books, got a tan in November, and did a decent job of not worrying too much about Seamus.

We returned late on a Sunday evening, happy and rested. I went to pick Seamus up as soon as I finished work on Monday. I approached the front desk, smiling.

“I’m here to pick up Seamus. And obviously, he’s feeling well. I could hear his howling as soon as I got out of my car.”

“The doctor would like to see you for a moment before you leave.” The receptionist’s voice was soft and kind, and she tilted her head to the side and squinted her eyes slightly, just slightly. Just enough that I worried maybe Seamus was not healing well from the surgery. Or hadn’t behaved well, since that was always a distinct possibility. That would be better—just a complaint about his howling, not a medical issue. But I knew that wouldn’t be the case. I knew because I’d seen this expression before, in this office. “The doctor would like to see you” is one of those statements like “We have to talk” that doesn’t bode well. And just back from a relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable four days on a Mexican beach with Chris, I wasn’t prepared for either statement.

I followed the receptionist to the exam room where she left me alone, seated, staring at the exam table and trying not to look at the cute baby animal photos likely meant to cheer me but having the opposite effect. I stared at the linoleum floor, avoiding not just the pictures but the charts, the jars, the vials, and even the puffs of cotton balls on the counters. I especially avoided the metal exam table. I’d spent too much time here in the past several years with my aging and ill dogs. We’d spread a blanket and laid Richelieu on that metal exam table where I held him and petted him when the injection that ended his life was administered. I had thought my time in this room was over for at least a few more years.

They brought Seamus into the room first. Dr. Davis wasn’t too far behind. Dr. Davis had been the vet to my last four beagles and even the two German Shepherds and a sweet red Doberman from my first marriage. He was with me when Richelieu had to be put down, and he treated Roxy for her heart murmur. He’d given Seamus his initial health check when I had adopted him only one year earlier. Dr. Davis and I had served together on the board of directors for our local pet adoption center for the last fifteen years. He was someone I trusted with my animals completely—someone I knew to be compassionate to humans and animals alike. His voice was even softer, kinder, and more patient than the receptionist’s.

“I’m sorry.” He tilted his head and leaned toward me. “The biopsy came back, and it is cancer. It’s what is known as a mast cell tumor. I’m so sorry. We really didn’t expect this.”

No, we really didn’t.

I sat on the floor. Seamus immediately crawled into my lap and sniffed my face. I held the dog close and petted his head as Dr. Davis explained yet another disease attacking yet another dog of mine. I didn’t hear much of what he told me. I petted Seamus and held his face to mine while I blinked back tears. I wanted to get to the safety of my car and later my home so I could fall apart in private. Dr. Davis handed me papers—a referral to a surgeon, medication, maybe a bill. I stuffed them in my purse.