“Can we go to the pet store today?” I said, like I did every time Arizona and Mom and I were having fun. I was sure that someday Mom and Dad would agree that I could get a puppy or a kitten or even a hamster or lizard. It didn’t occur to me that it might never happen. I was positive that if I found the right moment, I’d get what I wanted.
“We can go inside, but we’re not getting anything. But if you’d like to pet some puppies, we could do that,” Mom said. She didn’t let me pet the puppies all the time, but on special occasions I could convince her. “Is that what you want to do with your birthday?”
Arizona sighed. She didn’t like puppies or kittens. She didn’t like the ruckus of the pet store or the smells: pet food, feathers, dog breath, and kitty litter. But for me, she’d go. She’d even help me pick out the cutest puppy to snuggle.
“What if we find a really nice one? A special one? The best dog ever? Then can we get him?” I could barely control the words as they tumbled out. I wanted to ask the question one hundred times, over and over until I got the answer I wanted. I needed Mom to understand how desperate the need was, and how logical too.
For some reason, that day, on my fifth birthday, Mom seemed to really hear me. She looked at me with a brand-new smile, one I hadn’t seen before, and gave a half nod.
“I’d like you to have a puppy,” she said. “It helps, to have a puppy.”
Looking back, I have to assume she already knew she was leaving. Like a puppy is a consolation prize for a mother.
I thrilled at her not-no response and started jumping up and down in the fountain. The water was past my knees, and when it splashed it had enough force to cover my hair, my arms, my sister. I couldn’t stop smiling. I looked right at Mom, to thank her.
“Your eyes are weird,” I said. Something was different about them. I should have noticed it earlier, but my birthday and cupcakes and puppies and fountains full of water made it hard to spend much time looking at the details of my mother’s face.
“My eyes?” Mom touched her eyelids, touched the delicate lashes, the soft skin around the edges. She looked like she was about to cry. I felt like I was going to cry too, either from seeing her so upset or from the unrecognizable shape and texture of her face. What I would later come to easily recognize as a face-lift.
“Make them go back to normal,” I said. All of her looked different, but especially the stretched, smooth skin around her eyes.
The cry started then. An unstoppable thing. Rocky and young and raging.
“Shhhhh,” Arizona said, part sympathy, part terror.
“I want Daddy!” I wailed while Arizona patted my back and Mom looked around like she might get in trouble for having a crying child.
“Can you walk your sister home?” Mom said to Arizona. She put on big sunglasses to cover her eyes, and I felt immediately calmer. I wiped away tears and snot, but it was too late to save the day. Arizona took my hand and gave a big, solemn nod.
“Yes. Take a left on Christopher. I know the way,” Arizona said.
“Will Arizona take me to the pet store?” I said. “Will Daddy?” I wanted to apologize, but also make sure she kept her sunglasses on. I wanted a puppy and my mother and the safety of knowing my mother’s face wouldn’t change day to day. I wanted it all.
“Another day,” she said. “We’ll do it very, very soon.”
Arizona held my hand all the way back to the apartment, like she was supposed to, but I still felt scared of the blinking orange DON’T WALK signs and the strangers who asked if we were lost and even the familiar sound of traffic. We’d never been alone on the street before, and we both knew it was wrong.
“I messed up,” I said. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew I’d changed the afternoon, I’d made it bad when it was supposed to be good.
“No way,” Arizona said. I had never loved her more.
Mom came home with more cupcakes, and I was sick of them by then, but we ate them anyway. Dad, me, Arizona, and Mom in the kitchen, singing Happy birthday to Montana so many times I couldn’t get it out of my head for days after.
She left us not long after. I don’t eat cupcakes anymore, not even on my birthday.
June 14
The List of Things to Be Grateful For 1 The dreaminess of a white-wine-and-half-a-martini hangover when it is accompanied by French toast and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and a king-size bed and Karissa.
2 Kissing after sleeping, and the fact that unbrushed teeth can be romantic because they mean you are close to someone.
3 The soreness of your back after sleeping on the floor. The fact that it means you did something strange and uncalled-for and ridiculous.
June 18
The List of Things to Be Grateful For 1 The way Roxanne will listen to every detail of every kiss without judgment and the knowledge of how rare that is.
2 Arizona’s summer apartment. Not the fact of it existing, but that it is downright wallpapered with pictures of the two of us together.
3 The photo Natasha texted me of Victoria and Veronica in toddler bikinis, dipping their feet in the ocean for the first time.
eighteen