Lily considers this. “Can I have my red ball?”
I gently lift her up and study her Frankenstein scar. It’s like she’s now assembled from two different dogs: the puppy who will always want to play, and the senior dog who must come to understand her limits. I make her a promise: “Soon.”
I place Lily gently on a layer of towels in our bed, nestled safely between Jeffrey and me, and the pain pill and the toll of the day knock her out within minutes. Sleep comes fast for me, as well. It’s almost impossible to believe that when I woke up this morning I was in San Francisco.
I dream of the beach where Lily would run off-season when she was a puppy. In my dream she runs and runs, not getting anywhere fast. There are other dogs, bigger dogs, and she wants to run near them but not with them; she’s slightly intimidated by their size and the sand they kick up with their paws. Her whole body is a compression spring that launches her with each step into momentary levitation. Her floppy ears bound upward with each gallop, sometimes floating there in the wind as if someone has put them on pause. When she comes back to me I know they will be flipped backward, pinned to her head and the back of her neck. I spend half my life restoring that dog’s ears to their factory setting.
THE! SAND! IS! SO! SQUISHY! UNDER! MY! PAWS! AND! LOOK! HOW! VAST! THE! OCEAN! WATCH! ME! RUN! WITHOUT! MY! LEA—
Before she can say leash, a wave sweeps in and engulfs her delicate paws in a strand of slick seaweed and a look of terror washes over her face.
SERPENT! SERPENT! SERPENT!
She turns and hightails it to drier sand, closer to the dunes where the last of the tall grass waves. Immediately, her nose picks up the scent of a dead crab. She rips off a leg and runs with it in her mouth off into the distance until she is no more than a speck on the horizon.
In the morning, Jeffrey and I dress quickly and immediately take Lily outside. We set her on the grass and again she is able to stand. She even attempts an excited step or two, looking not unlike Bambi but with shorter legs, before I can calm her to keep her from overexerting herself. “Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.”
Jeffrey looks to intervene but I shrug him off. This is my job. This is my moment. I will not be a coward, I will not be afraid. I will not be someone who can love only so much. I will not be someone who is not whole or fully present when things get tough. I will not let others do the heavy lifting for me. I will not be distracted by a text message. Wringing the piss out of this dog I love—this is my Everest. This is on me.
I tuck Lily’s hind legs under her and settle her into her usual crouch, legs slightly splayed like a frog’s. From behind her I reach under her abdomen and feel for the water balloon, for the soft squish the size of a lemon. When I find it, I take a deep breath, gird myself, and squeeze. Up and to the back.
I don’t know what’s different in the morning light—the fullness of her bladder, her willingness to do her part, my fearlessness brought on by the dawn of a new day, the dream of her running, the desire to see her run again. Whatever it is, when I squeeze up and to the back her tail rises to that familiar forty-five-degree angle that makes it look like a missile about to launch and slowly she starts to pee.
“She’s doing it! You’re doing it!” I’m so excited I almost let go. But I don’t. I continue to squeeze.
Lily is startled by the sensation and overwhelmed with relief. Jeffrey pumps his fist and we both break out in smiles.
“At last,” Jeffrey says, relieved.
“Ha-ha!” I am triumphant.
Lily attempts to stand and I realize I can stop squeezing. I gently guide her over the puddle of her making.
“You did it, Bean.” Everything else fades away.
I’m the happiest I have ever been.
Suction
Monday
The octopus sits in his usual perch as Lily and I make our way to the veterinarian’s office. We skirt the construction around LACMA because no one in Los Angeles knows how to merge. Lily sits as she always does when I drive, in my lap with her chin nestled in the crook of my left elbow—the arm I try in vain to steer with as I downshift with my right. She looks up at me, annoyed, whenever we actually have to make a turn. The octopus hasn’t said anything this morning. He doesn’t have to; the echo of his voice rings hauntingly in my brain. He’s getting bigger by the hour.