“I know what you meant.”
We bring champagne to Franklin and Jeffrey, and I offer a final toast. “Wishing you all good things in your life together.” Short. Simple. To the point. I look at Meredith, relaxed in her ivory gown. My sister is all grown up. I’m grateful we did our growing up together.
When we get back to our room, this time it’s me who changes our itinerary and books us two seats on the first morning flight out. There will be no lavish brunch with the newlyweds, only airport coffee and whatever they serve on the plane. If we’re lucky there will be a very quick good-bye before we sneak off to the airport.
I crawl into bed and let the day wash over me. As exhausting as it has been, our San Francisco adventure in many ways has been a small oasis of calm. I think of myself floating on the barge that sails the Tonga Room, swaying to Dan Fogelberg or Sheena Easton or someone who in the parallel universe of the Hurricane Bar is still popular.
I turn out the light.
Darkness.
The hard work of healing begins.
Squeezed
Squeeze,” I say.
“I am squeezing,” Jeffrey replies.
“Squeeze harder.”
“I’m squeezing as hard as I dare.”
“Well, you’re not squeezing her right, then.”
“Do you want to trade jobs? Because it’s easy to just stand there and hold a flashlight.”
“Not the way you keep moving.”
Jeffrey gets annoyed and he lets go. He stands up and hits his head on the outcropped tree branch above him.
“Look out for that branch,” I say, completely unhelpfully. I know this will enrage him, but I feel entitled to say what I want because I’m scared.
I hand Jeffrey the flashlight and crouch down next to Lily, who cowers on the gravel in the harsh puddle of light. I place my hands as the vet instructed, on either side of her under her abdomen, and I squeeze her soft bladder, in and back, in and back. Nothing. The light glints off the staples that run the length of her back. She’s laced up like a football.
“Anything?” Jeffrey asks.
I tip her up and look underneath for any evidence that she has peed. “Nothing.” I run through the steps again. “The doctor said it feels like a water balloon?”
“Yes. Like a water balloon. About the size of a small lemon.”
Lily’s abdomen does feel like a water balloon. Soft and squishy. Expressing her bladder was not something I had steeled myself for on the flight back from San Francisco. I thought I had prepared mentally as well as I could. I drank coffee instead of liquor. I stayed awake instead of sleeping. I made a shopping list for all the things we would need on the back of a napkin: a pen to keep her quarantined to a small area, blankets so she wouldn’t slip on the hardwood floors, toys that would keep her mentally engaged without exciting her physically. Treats—healthy ones, so that she wouldn’t gain weight during the inactivity of recovery. Carrying added pounds would just be additional stress on her spine.
Learning to express a dog’s bladder, however, was not on that list, despite how obvious it seems to me now. The vet who discharged us laid down a weewee pad on the cold metal examining table and showed us just how it was done. She made it seem so effortless, I assumed I had understood the lesson. Turns out I was wrong. We haven’t been able to get her to pee since we left the hospital.
“My poor girl. The indignity of it all.” I hoist Lily in the football carry that was demonstrated for us, supporting her hindquarters, careful to avoid the tree branch above. “Let’s go to bed.” Frustrated, Jeffrey switches off the flashlight. I know this means she may release her bladder in her sleep, in our bed, but we’ll just have to get up and change the sheets. There’s no squeezing her any harder.
Inside, I set her down on a blanket and she stands upright. I’m amazed by this progress, even though she can’t yet walk. She can stand, unsteady though she is, and that in itself is a huge accomplishment. For now, that’s enough. I read the instructions again on Lily’s red prescription bottles and select a Tramadol for pain and a Clavamox to ward off infection and seal them into a pill pocket. She gobbles up the treat.
“Monkey, look at you. You’re standing.”
“My name is Lily.”
“I know it is.” I rest my hand on the top of her head, and her eyes blink heavily. She is only seven, but for the first time she looks old. A strip of bare skin runs down her back where the staples are. She looks sad, disrobed of her mahogany fur.
“What happened to you?”
Lily seems to concentrate on remembering. “I don’t know. I woke up and I couldn’t walk.”
“You scared me.” I cup her head in my hands and she looks like a nun in a wimple.
She licks her chops for any remaining flavor from the pill pocket. “I know you put medicine in those things.”
“I know you know.” Then I add, “The medicine will help you heal.”