My first serious boyfriend in college had a sky-blue Triumph TR7. I didn’t really care for the boy, but I loved the car. What can I say in my defense except tell you that the car could go from a dead stop to sixty miles per hour in less time than it took me to move his hand out from under my shirt. The car didn’t just move—it charged.
Collette this morning would have put that TR7 to shame. Just as David manages to slide the bolt open, Collette is on her feet and rocketing toward the gate. David sees the blur of her huge form heading toward him, but it is too late for him to do anything except jump out of the way as Collette blows through the gate.
Collette is free, but she doesn’t move far; there’s still that bucket of food to consider. Because Collette is a member of the porcine family, she is genetically predisposed to eat. She has never shown either the willpower or an iota of intention to contradict her genes. For Collette, food is not only king, it is the entire damn kingdom. Although David has had very limited contact with Collette since she came into our household, I know he is aware of at least this much.
I can see David calculating his options—pig, food, David, gate—like it is some law school logic puzzle.
David shakes the bucket of food to get Collette’s attention and then takes a few careful steps toward her. The ground near the pigpen is slick with a thin sheet of ice, and David slips and slides as he attempts to maneuver. The pig grunts at him suspiciously.
“Come on, Collette. Time for breakfast,” David says in his most soothing tone as he shakes the bucket again.
David makes the rest of the distance to Collette without her moving off, but it clearly is a
Be careful what you wish for
moment. In his logic game paradigm, David has successfully joined the objects of “pig,” “food,” and “David,” but now he is farther away from the “gate.”
David tries to nudge the pig ever-so-gently in the desired direction. Even though it is only the slightest hint of physical contact, Collette immediately drops to the ground with a loud squeal as if she’s been shot in the head. David pulls his foot out of the way just in time to avoid her zaftig rump, but he slips and lands facedown right next to Collette’s head.
David lifts himself on his elbows and Collette turns her face to him. They are now eye-to-eye at ground level, only a few inches away from each other. She yawns in David’s face.
In the end, it takes far longer than it should have—and certainly more time than David allotted—but to his credit, he eventually succeeds in joining “pig” and “food” with “David” on the correct side of the “gate.” Collette eats and her world, if not entirely fulfilled, is for the moment at least sated.
Twenty-five minutes later, David emerges from the house dressed for work under a black Brooks Brothers overcoat. He checks his watch as he heads toward his Jeep and the long drive to his office.
Just before he gets into the car, David looks back at the house and our large backyard surrounded by chain-link fencing. Chip, Bernie, and Skippy stand by the fence watching him leave. Before today, this play was repeated thousands of times in one form or another over the course of our marriage. I call it
Dogs Watching David Go to Work
.
Before today, the dogs would have waited outside until David’s car had gone. Then they would come inside the house for the real start of their day with me. On most days this meant that the three of them would jump into my old battered Jeep for the quick trip to my office. Skippy would take the front passenger seat so he could watch the world through the windshield. Bernie and Chip would fall asleep almost immediately in the back of the car. I would stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through so I could get a decent cup of coffee and give each of the dogs a bagel. They would be my companions at the office, as comfortable there as at home.
When you live with animals, there are many such plays—expectations stated, responses given, and behavior modified. Companion animals, almost without exception, thrive on the familiar and routine.
The plays we had performed with my creatures are over now, locked away behind a door to a room that David and I can never again enter. The horses seem to know this reality. The dogs, however, take longer to get there. This is not because they are less intelligent or unaware, but only because dogs believe in the inertia of good things.
David starts walking toward the dogs to give them one final good-bye when a powerful and angry
BANG
from within the barn spins him around. I can see it suddenly dawn on David that the horses are still locked in the barn from the night before. In doing battle with Collette, he completely forgot about the horses. Before he can depart, David still must release Arthur and Alice from their stalls into the paddock and give them fresh hay to tide them over until dinner. David has no choice; he must enter the barn.
David and I always felt very differently about the barn. I loved the place. The mixture of manure, fresh hay, and molasses feed is
the smell of the living. In the summer, the concrete floor and high ceiling keep it cool; in the winter, the heat of the horses combined with the insulation provided by bundles of wood shavings keeps it warm. When the horses are out in the paddock, field mice and birds compete in a delicate dance on the barn floor for the remnants of grain and sweet feed.
David, on the other hand, always viewed the barn with anxiety. Because the barn contained large animals in a relatively small and confined space, in David’s mind this meant danger. It was not as if a horse had ever actually hurt David. Perhaps that was the problem—real actions have tangible, measurable consequences that can be ameliorated; actions that reside only in the mind are capable of forever escaping rational attention.
There is also one important fact about horse barns that David today apparently has forgotten: It is impossible to remain clean in one, even if you’re standing completely still.
Once in the barn, David gingerly removes several flakes of hay from a nearby stack and holds them carefully away from his body to prevent the slightest incidental contact with his black overcoat. The coat, like the 100 percent merino wool suit underneath, is a magnet for hay.
David steps outside of the barn for a moment and tosses the hay through the slats of the horse fencing and into the paddock. He quickly confirms that he has remained hay-free throughout the process and returns to the barn.
David takes hold of Alice’s halter and carefully moves the horse from her stall into the paddock through a doorway at the rear of the barn. Alice, smelling the fresh hay and morning air, cooperates with David’s inexperienced hands. She is out and snacking in less than three minutes.
David exhales a breath of relief and then sets his sights on the towering form that is my horse Arthur. He reaches for Arthur’s halter just as he did Alice’s only moments ago. That’s David’s mistake; Arthur, as David should know by now, is what we call head-shy, meaning that he does not like to have his face touched—particularly by men.
Arthur ducks and bobs his large head to avoid David’s hand—a tactic that works for several minutes. David finally grabs hold of the halter and tries to pull the horse through the back of the barn and into the paddock. Arthur, however, chooses to remain where he is.
In the face of Arthur’s obstinacy, David starts tugging on the halter, cursing under his breath. Arthur doesn’t welcome my husband’s hostility. While David still holds the halter, Arthur whips his head around, sending David tumbling into the nearby hay bales.
When David rises unsteadily from the barn floor, he reminds me of Ray Bolger in
The Wizard of Oz
. His knee joints wobble and hay sticks out of his hair, topcoat, pant legs, and even his socks and shoes. When he walks, hay drops out of his pants as if the hay somehow has become his very essence.
Arthur whinnies his amusement and then, halter half off, saunters to the back of the barn, through the gate, and into the paddock where Alice waits for him.
David, very late now, runs for his car as he pulls hay out of his hair.
By my count, the score is Horse 1, David 0.
Seventy-four minutes later, David stands before a soaring office building in Midtown Manhattan amid the crush of workday morning bodies. He looks to the very top of the glass-and-chrome
structure as people brush past him. Then he squares his shoulders, tightens his tie, and walks inside.
David passes his identification card through the security gate and then, together with a handful of other people dressed just as he is, heads to the elevator bank servicing the top fifteen floors of the building.
In accordance with some established rule of morning Manhattan elevator etiquette, communication is kept to a bare minimum. David looks at his shoes as the elevator tings each floor between thirty-three and forty-three. When the doors open on forty-three, a small woman of sixty passes him to exit. She gently squeezes David on the elbow and whispers her condolences. David offers a weak smile in response. A few others murmur their sympathy as they, too, leave the elevator.
David stays on the elevator until the forty-eighth floor. The elevator doors open and David reenters the world of Peabody, Grossman and Samson, the world that gave us money and him a successful law career, but that also so often took David away from me physically and in ways that mattered even more.
A young blond receptionist stationed behind a huge marble desk with subdued modern lighting speaks quietly into a telephone headset. She spots David, smiles, and mouths
Welcome back
as he passes and proceeds through a set of glass double doors etched with the letters
PG&S
.
The relative quiet of the reception area gives way to the frenetic sounds of a large Manhattan law firm. Phones ring, fax and copy machines whir, and snippets of conversation sound from all directions.
As David advances down the central hallway of the law firm, many of the secretaries call out to him in welcome while a few of the attorneys wave to David through the glass walls of their offices.
David soon arrives at Martha’s workstation. When he was first assigned to Martha, it was only because the partner for whom she had worked for the prior decade left the firm literally in the middle of the night with all his client files. Although the partner never confided his plans to Martha, the leaders of the firm had always assumed (but could not prove) that she was aware of the traitor’s scheme. As punishment for her failure to drop a dime on her boss, Martha was demoted to secretary to the bottom rung of all Manhattan law firm professional life—a first-year associate.
Martha at first declined to speak to her new charge and David, who can be quite obstinate and arrogant when challenged (yes, even back then), didn’t help matters. This situation continued for over a month until Martha’s beloved cat became ill with early-stage kidney cancer. David, seeing a potential opening to their impasse, volunteered my services.
When Martha walked into my office at the Animal Medical Hospital in Manhattan for the first time with her cat, I was astounded by the disconnect between the mental image I had formed of her from David’s stories (old, crotchety, matronly with perhaps a broom hidden somewhere under her desk or, more likely, sticking out of her ass) and her true image (tall, fit, only in her late forties, with bright blue eyes).
Following our brief but polite introductions, I examined Smokey and confirmed the initial diagnosis. I also explained to Martha the somewhat limited options available. After listening to my litany of pros and cons of treatment, Martha rocked Smokey in her arms and said simply, “We never had children.”
On that day, Martha and I agreed that we would do whatever we could for Smokey, but also that we would never let his quality of life suffer. Martha made me promise—and I did so willingly—that
if I ever thought she was holding on beyond an appropriate time, I would slap her out of it.
That moment came five months later on a cold day like today when Smokey stopped eating. I arrived at Martha’s apartment that evening with my kill bag. Martha’s husband, a small, older man with a kind face, greeted me warmly at the door and ushered me in. Before I even was able to remove my coat, Martha asked, “Can’t we feed him by tube?” She took one look at my face and answered her own question. “It’s time, isn’t it.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. Martha nodded, tears beginning to spill down her face. She held Smokey while he passed. By the end, despite all my efforts to maintain my air of professionalism, I was crying almost as hard as she was. I believe that Martha loved me for that.
Martha was my first real proof that an act of caring for another’s companion animal creates a bridge that one must work very hard to ignore or destroy.
Martha soon became not only David’s real secretary, but also his chief protector and principal defender at the firm. She understands who at the firm kisses and who turns their cheek to be kissed.
When Martha notices David’s return this morning, she jumps out of her chair and gives him a long, warm hug. “Let me have a good look at you.” Martha slowly turns David around and picks off a few flecks of hay from his shoulder. “Well, you look like crap.”
“Thank you.” David smiles at her.
“Seriously, you look awfully pale. And thin. How do you feel?”
“I’m fine.” In response to Martha’s look of skepticism, David adds, “Really, I am.”
“Good thing you practice law better than you lie.”
David and Martha walk together into David’s large office. His
desk is completely covered with neat stacks of files and lists, and this is where David’s attention is first drawn. He shakes his head in disbelief.
“Don’t worry,” Martha says. “It’s not as bad as it looks. The most important thing is that you’re back.”
David moves behind his desk and into his chair. Once seated, his eyes cannot avoid the photo he keeps on his desk of the two of us in Paris.
“Can I get you anything?” Martha asks in the mounting silence.
David shakes his head, eyes on the picture.
“It’ll get easier,” she says.