Stepdog (23 page)

“Don't do that,” I yelled. “You are risking an infection. And please go wash your hands. What's the point of putting antibiotic ointment on your face twice a day? Really, Jim.”

Jim couldn't wait to get back on his bike. He first had to take it to the shop for a checkup and—oh, yes—heal.

“Of course I'll ride again.”

I struggled not to slap him.

“I love riding and it's a great form of exercise. I don't want to give it up. Training- and fitness-wise, it's the best thing I've found.”

It was hard to hear this when his stitches hadn't even come out yet.

“Right,” I said. “Let's just wait for major catastrophic injury.”

Sorry, hated to be a drag, but this was not fair to me either.

“I was pretty cautious, darling. I never went out without a helmet. I didn't go out when there was ice on the road. I've gone out of my way to ride on wider and safer roads. I want to have relaxing, fun exercise and I don't want to have to worry about my safety.”

But, still, he fell. He still got hurt and came out looking so awful his own dog did a double take. Worse, we still didn't know the cause of the accident. Many days were spent trying to figure out what happened. Jim didn't remember much between the moments before the fall and the emergency room. That was the second fall of the ride, I later learned.

At a stoplight, he had tried to uncleat his right leg but lost his balance and fell like a turtle, on his back, with the bike still on the cleats on top of him. But he rolled over and did not hit his head. Jim remembered that minor spill, but not what caused him to squeeze the brakes abruptly a few minutes later.

Clemson saw no pothole, no pebble, no obstruction, no squirrel. Jim didn't scream. Clemson said he saw Jim's face as he was going down and it was blank, completely devoid of expression, as if he were already passed out.

Did he faint before the fall?

“What the fuck could have happened?” Jim asked Clemson.

“I looked at your bike and I can't find a major sign of mechanical failure,” Clemson said, “which is why I'm wondering whether you had some kind of episode.”

“Maybe something happened to the brake and when I touched it, it like seized?”

But the bike shop gave his bike a clean bill of health. A few days later we went back to the scene of the accident—a pristine bike lane along suburban mansions—and found no clues. Nothing.

“We may never find out,” Jim said, resigned. “The accident was unsettling, but it was just a fluke.”

“What would you do differently?”

“Nothing.”

How reassuring.

Many friends who heard about Jim's accident had their own bizarre bike story to tell. Three of them were colleagues at the
Times.
They were riding, and splat. No one could remember a thing. Ever.

Jim felt well enough to go back to work after a week, but he was still in pain and I was still terrified of the bike. He'd already started riding the three-quarters of a mile to the train station.

“How about spinning?” I suggested. “We can buy a machine and put it in the garage. Or do Zumba with me. I've lost weight with the DVDs.”

Jim pretended to be Eddie—deaf, dumb, and determined. He would ride again, when all the snowstorms cleared. He'd go looking for another ass-whipping, as they said in Puerto Rico.
“Buscando fuete pa'l fondillo.”

I prayed for more lousy winter weather.

Both the neurologist and the cardiologist eventually said he was good to go. This was after Jim took electrocardiogram and stress tests and shaved his chest to wear three sensors attached to an electronic device for thirty days. A special BlackBerry received the signals from the heart monitor and the information went automatically to the doctor. He looked like a robot, with wires coming out of his shirt. He had to sleep on his back.

“I guess this is good-bye,” the cardiologist told him after getting the readings.

His heart rhythms were normal.

•   •   •

B
ut among the medical bills that rained on us in the months that followed, there was a charge for treatment of a fractured nose. No one ever told us his nose had been injured. And his shoulder, which suffered his most debilitating and painful injury, didn't seem to be healing. They X-rayed it at the hospital, but they didn't find a break. His shoulder kept hurting. I suggested getting a massage, but Jim was reluctant. He thought whatever was wrong had not healed well enough and might get more damaged. He finally agreed to see my massage therapist for computer-related aches and pains, Dane, the gentlest and nicest. I had not seen him in ages, since I started regular yoga classes. Jim made an appointment, but after his massage he didn't feel any better. He complained of soreness for a week. Next, Jim went to see Wanda, a chiropractor friend of ours. She immediately told Jim to get an MRI. Based on the pain he was having and what she felt, she thought it was possible he had a rotator cuff tear. She wouldn't work on his neck or the shoulder because of the uncertainty about what kind of injury he had.

Finally, the MRI showed a non-displaced fracture, meaning there was a crack in the bone but the bone itself was not displaced. In addition, he had a tear of the cartilage of the shoulder joint. No wonder. There was nothing to do except take it easy. No need for a cast, just time to heal. But at least now we knew what was going on. Two months after the accident, we finally got the tally of the damage from the accident. But we never found out what happened. I was still relieved. Jim was still lucky. I was lucky. First Eddie, and now Jim. Even from my high horse I realized I needed to be a better person to my husband and to his dog because I was grateful to have them both in my life. Eddie was an extension of the husband. So were the children. I surrendered.

Jim soon got back on the bike in earnest and I joined him sometimes for short nice rides to nearby parks. We often dined alfresco like we did in L.A., in the beautifully landscaped backyards of friends. We had still not gotten around to investing in our own backyard to make it ready for prime time, but we hosted dinner parties indoors and were pleasantly surprised that we could get a quorum of friends from the city to hop on New Jersey Transit to make the trek to Montclair and back.

The next Father's Day, in spite of myself, almost without thinking, I got Jim a card, not from me, but from his dog.

“Dear Daddy,” Eddie wrote. “Thanks for cleaning up my poop and laying out newspapers so I can pee in the living room. So convenient! I adore you and only you. Love, Eddie. Woof!”

That was written by She Who Routinely Purges Her Facebook News Feed of Friends Who Clutter It with Dog Pictures. But Eddie no longer brought out the worst in me. I bought wee-wee pads for the living room. I purposely dropped crumbs and cuttings on the floor while cooking.

My growing appreciation for our mutt meant that I worried more about him. When I exercised to my Zumba tapes in the den, Eddie still got all upset about the dancing. He tried to get me to stop by nibbling at my kicking feet or standing next to me—through the merengue, the salsa, the samba, and the reggaeton—and I was afraid of accidentally knocking him out. I put him outside and closed the door and after a few skirmishes he resigned himself to sleep through the workout.

Like old people, Eddie had some good days and some bad days. The visits to the vet became more frequent. Despite our vigilance, he once again ate something that caused another bout of poisoning-like symptoms. Another day, Jim went to take him for a walk and Eddie fell on the kitchen floor—just slid and flopped over and refused to go farther than the driveway. Even sick at the vet's office, Eddie managed to draw compliments.

“Pretty,” said a woman who was holding a Labrador puppy waiting to get his shots. “I like his markings.”

Some days Eddie seemed very low on energy and somewhat weak. Other days he was lively, rushing to his water dish after a morning walk as if he had just crossed the Sahara and was now ready to wolf down his breakfast. He had arthritis, an enlarged heart, and twenty other little ailments—and we had to clap to get his attention—but Eddie still got it. Only now it was a joy for me to watch.

Time served Eddie and me well. I didn't have that benefit with my stepdaughter and stepson, both already young adults in their twenties, and our relationships still needed work. There were thaws in their visits, but it was a struggle not to revert to old roles. That went for Eddie too. But as the humans around him came and went, he remained whatever we wanted to project on him. More often than not, he succeeded in revealing our best side to each other. Our solicitousness in walking and feeding him. Our concern for his health. Our capacity to laugh together at his antics and our sense of humor in trying to interpret his sounds, like when he was ordered out from underneath the dining table and into his corner and settled down with a “Harrumph!”

In our stepfamily, he was the champ. He was deserving of the term “family” after all. As Eddie hobbled around the house, restless even at his advanced age, sometimes I called to him and he responded like a normal dog, approaching semi-eager for my caresses. One day Jim found me sitting on the kitchen floor petting his dog and he smiled at the welcomed scene, as occasional as Halley's Comet. He had a look of melancholy.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

He hesitated, as if not to spoil the moment, then finally said: “He's forgotten he doesn't like you.”

Epilogue

M
y husband and I have drawn closer from adversity. We just celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. The marriage is steady, the family still a work in progress—isn't that always the case? Jim and I truly love each other, strengthened now by more than a decade of shared history. We know what we have, and what we don't want to lose.

The dog? Not so much.

Eddie is ancient—thirteen years old, a dog nonagenarian. As I write, he's resting a few feet from me, contorted into a coil on his bed in the den, licking his privates. He lives noisily on. He's pretty much the same self-absorbed “galoot,” oblivious to my own personal transformation. He doesn't know he almost died, that I felt guilty, that his adored master also had his own uncomfortably close encounter with disaster, that I gained clarity about all of our relationships. He's our dog, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. And who would have thought I would ever be saying that? Still, our relationship has yet to be upgraded to love-love.

I routinely pet him now, since we're cool. I'm still his meal ticket. I continue to feed him and I'm sometimes overcome, I admit, with motherly tenderness while he eats. He sounds like an avant-garde punk band—swirling the dry food around, smacking his tongue, pushing the bowl against the wall, hitting the bowl with his metal name tag—but the noise is comforting. Eat, doggie, eat, so you remain strong and ornery.

•   •   •

H
e still often ambles past me with nary a glance, stopping only to flaunt his perfect downward-facing dog.

Do I care?

No. He's senile.

Do I care that he snores more frequently and more loudly?

Only if he drowns out conversation or my favorite TV show. Do I care that he now sometimes lifts his leg toward me, rather than a stationary object like a wall, looking like Jane Fonda on all fours doing lateral thigh-raises?

No. He still can't reach me.

Do I care that he can't stay away from the kitchen and our legs, nose to the floor, “Checking it out, checking it out. Oh, that's interesting. Slurp.”

Yes. I'm scared of tripping over him and killing him in the process, since he's increasingly fragile.

When I've had it, I lure him to the den, close the door, and don't let him out until we're through cooking. Jim sometimes sneaks over and lets him out sooner. Eddie's Che.

Do I care that when I let him out in the backyard he licks the grease from the grill, digs in our flower bed, and, lately, has started eating the wood chips that cover the dirt?

“Jim!”

I'm in the kitchen yelling at the ceiling. Jim comes down from our bedroom and I tell him about my discovery.

“Do you know what he's doing? Eating those wooden chips in the backyard! I had to pry one out of his mouth when I saw him chewing. That's what poisoned him!”

“Oh my gosh,” Jim says.

Then to his dog: “What are you doing back there? Are you eating wood chips?”

Eddie keeps mum, but I'm certain I've cracked the case. That is, until I tell Jim's sister-in-law, Kathy, and she mentions that a dog of hers was poisoned once from digging up and eating daffodil bulbs. “Do we have daffodils?” I ask Jim. Yes, he says, and tulips and other flower bulbs that apparently have toxins and are poisonous to dogs and cats. Go figure. They must taste good. I go to a pet website to look up the symptoms of plant poisoning and there they are: vomiting, diarrhea, increased heart rate, abdominal pain.

Eddie is now forbidden from the backyard unless he's chaperoned.

I'm still at the
Times
, covering housing and still loving my work
.
Jim still works for
The Wall Street Journal
. Henry is still attending college in Southern California, and working part-time. Arielle is still working for an AIDS organization in Africa, still hooked on the continent. I'm sure counseling and therapy help many marriages. But in our case, so far we've made it out of the rough patches pretty much on our own.

Sooner or later, everybody grows up, even Eddie. My friend Tammy just visited and let Eddie sleep with her in the guest room, on his own cushion at the foot of the bed. Normally, that would have been an invitation for a midnight sneak attack. In a breakthrough, this time Eddie did not try to jump on the bed during the night, not even once, even though he's still capable.

Jim and I experienced a first—our dog made us proud.

Jim still rides his bike. He's now joined a group organized by his bike shop. They go out for rides of up to fifty miles in New Jersey, up and down hills, in and out of traffic, but at least he doesn't ride alone. I'm considering taking up biking myself so I can join them, even though I'm terrified of the cleats that lock feet to pedals. Jim says they help you propel the bike more forcefully, because you're not only pushing the pedal down but also pulling it up, making you more efficient.

“You use less energy per mile,” he promises.

But learning to master cleats will undoubtedly require a few spills, and I cherish my bones.

I'm thinking about it.

After all these years, Jim is still the man of my dreams and Eddie is still the dog of my nightmares. We still catch him in flagrante on the sofa every now and then when we forget to close all the doors. He can't negotiate stairs, he's way past his expiration date—but he can still get his butt up on the sofa. He still fakes contriteness when we catch him there.

The seasons change, but my husband still wears rose-tinted glasses and Eddie is still Eddie. He still looks disappointed when I'm the first one down in the morning, and whimpers for Jim until he makes his appearance. Then it's ecstasy.

Eddie still flings himself against the stairwell door, repeatedly, trying to open it while we sleep upstairs. He's driven by the same old burning desire: to get into our bedroom, snuggle up to his sleeping beau and, at some point during the night, shove me off the bed. Jim still makes up great explanations for his dog's behavior.

“It's the change in weather. You know how when it goes from dry to rain, I get headachy.”

I know.

Eddie and I still mark our territory and he still has the energy to bark at me occasionally. But his barking has less brio and I pretend it's good-natured and playful. I'm giving him a pass, for life. He's in his own personal la-la land. I enjoy the good and take the bad in stride. Whenever I see him standing still, stopped in his tracks in the middle of the hallway, as if he's trying to remember where he left his keys, I love him a little more. We're not best buds, but there's new mutual respect. We know we're not going anywhere. We've made our peace.

I still seek the soothing calm of yoga. One of my teachers talks one day about becoming an observer of our thoughts, as if they had nothing to do with us.

“Don't push them away,” she advises. “The thoughts are going to come anyway. Step back and observe them and try to calm your mind that way.”

I try it, but kicking my negative thoughts to the moon works better for me.

Kerri, my favorite yoga teacher, left for an ashram in India for five weeks and gave us a bunch of words to live by each week—inspiration, kindness, confidence, forgiveness—and a “power animal.” The idea of the power animal is that of an ally, a spirit guide in animal form. They supposedly come to you in dreams, meditation, and in real life. Kerri gave us envelopes to choose from and I got the “dolphin.” I was supposed to read up on it and see how I felt about it. I liked what I read. Dolphins remind us to breathe. They breathe in deeply, hold their breath underwater, and then breathe out with gusto. When humans follow their example, they release pain, anger, and other suppressed feelings. For the heck of it, I looked up “power animal” and “dog.” Perhaps Eddie was in my life to fulfill a mystical purpose?

Nope.

Domesticated animals are too removed from their wildness and the natural world to be power animals, or so some of the spiritual animal experts say.

This is what Eddie would say about that: “Power animals don't sleep on sofas? That's not power.”

I now appreciate dogs for what they really are: social bees. They can't be alone for a moment if you're in the house. They just want to be close to you. They make you the center of their universe. They don't talk, the perfect companions that way. No wonder so many humans go gaga for them.

When my dog-loving sister came to visit recently from Puerto Rico, I was eager for her opinion of Eddie. After hearing me complain for years, here he is, finally, in the flesh.

I let a full day go by before I ask her after dinner: “What do you think?”

“No, he's not too friendly,” Mari says, looking at Eddie resting at Jim's feet. “He only has eyes for Jim. Now I know what you mean.”

Thank you,
querida
.

“Would you ever get another dog?” she asks Jim as he rubs his mutt's head.

Jim closes his eyes and shakes his head. “No. Too much work. Too expensive.”

Oh, but I know better, dear reader. I don't know everything, but I know my husband will always want a dog. Jim can't even help striking up a conversation with a random dog tied to a parking meter as he walks by. “Hi, buddy. Looking good.”

I'll leave you with what else I know. Let's call it my Top Ten Do's and Don'ts when you find a dog in your romance.

10. Show you're not a competitor for food or affection—the dog, and the children, for that matter, should know right off the bat there will always be plenty of both for them, especially biscuits.

9. Throw yourself into the mosh pit. There's no way to avoid your instant family, even the four-legged members, so you might as well get in there and fight for your place early.

8. Carve out childless, dogless space in the house and the relationship.

7. Give it time. Stepfamilies don't mesh easily. It sometimes takes dog years.

6. Don't take anything personally.

5. Have sex.

4. Take a class, read a book, do whatever it takes to understand what's going on in the dog's head. It's not totally empty.

3. Do downward-facing dog. Yoga helps.

2. At your craziest, don't lose sight of yourself and your values.

1. And never, ever, underestimate the dog.