Why had I always been so angry?
What was with my need to be right? To win every argument with her? To outstubborn a dog?
And just like that, all of the anger is gone. Released, like the emptying of a bladder, into soft cotton sheets as we lie in the wetness.
Lily tries to regulate her breathing, but it quickly turns to panting.
“Do you want water? You can drink mine.” I indicate the glass of water I always keep on the nightstand.
Lily shakes her head no.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “For all those other nights.”
“Wh-y-y-y-y?” The panting continues.
And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.
She wants to know why I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell her about my anger. I don’t want to tarnish my image in her eyes. Not now. Not with the octopus listening.
So when I respond, I lie.
“Because I’m going to have to give you a bath.”
A Complete List of Lily’s Nicknames
Silly Little Lil
Monkey Bunny Bunny Rabbit Mouse Tiny Mouse Goose Silly Goose Mongoose Monster Monster Dot Com Peanut Penuche Pinochle Sweet Pea Walnut Walnut Brain Copperbottom Crazy Baby
Puppy Guppy Old Lady Crank Cranky Crankypants Squeaky Squeaky Fromme Tiger Dingbat Mush
Mushyface Hipster Slinkster Slinky Bean
Dog
Saturday
The sun rises with a surprising intensity, a sign that June gloom has cleared the runway and July is on approach. We’re both tired, and it would’ve been easy to return to the bed after our morning walk, read from a book maybe, drift lazily in and out of sleep. But the sun beckons with a blazingly confrontational message: There is darkness, but there is also light. To stay in bed would be to embrace the darkness, the seizures, the octopus. To go outside is to embrace the light.
“How about we go somewhere?” I suggest this as we eat breakfast. Kibble for her, Kashi—per usual—for me.
Lily doesn’t answer until she finishes her meal and sniffs around the kitchen floor to make sure no additional kibble has escaped the confines of her bowl. “I’m fine staying in.”
“I know you’re fine with staying in. But I think we should take a ride and see the ocean.”
Lily thinks about this, and I wonder how much she remembers the ocean. If she misses it. We used to go there a lot. My hope is the octopus misses it and will take one look at his home and crawl back into the sea.
The car is warm from the morning sun, and I open the sunroof. Lily lasts about thirty seconds in the passenger seat before she climbs into her customary perch on my lap. She turns around three times and I wait at a stop sign until she settles because it’s hard to drive when your dog is stepping on sensitive bits that she shouldn’t. As always, she quiets herself with her chin in the crook of my left elbow, and we turn down the street heading west.
We hit the Pacific Coast Highway in no time. Where is everyone? It’s almost like an entire city has been so lulled by the gloom and the haze that they’ve all given up their identity as early risers. Their loss, our gain. The sun is even shining as we emerge off the 10 and through the tunnel that gives us our first glimpse of the Pacific. This is a hard one to explain to visitors, the weather differential between most of Los Angeles and the ocean. The beach is often the last part of the city to see sun. But not today. Today, the sun sparkles majestically off the water.
I stream some music from my phone and crank it loud, but this seems to bother Lily—she has the look of someone with a crippling hangover, the thumping bass going right through her—so I turn the volume down until you can just make out the music over the sound of the air that whooshes over and past the open sunroof. We pass a string of familiar landmarks: the restaurant where Jeffrey and I had our first date; Paradise Cove, where I had lunch with my father the last time he visited; Trancas Market, where in my twenties I used to buy bottled water and snacks before hitting a Malibu beach. I see a younger version of myself at each and it’s all I can do not to wave; I wonder what my younger selves would think of me now, if they would recognize me or even care to wave back.