The Blessings of the Animals_A Novel

CHAPTER Ten

I BROUGHT THE THREE-LEGGED CAT HOME, PRAYING HE wouldn’t destroy my house before he completed his antibiotics and could go outside again. He fumed, resenting his plastic Elizabethan collar—but he required it since he kept tearing out his stitches (an amputation required a longer incision than a neuter, after all).
Gingersnap responded by sulking out of the house to pout in the barn. Max’s nose-in-the-butt greeting earned him a swipe across the nose, but he didn’t seem offended.
Gabriella and I agreed that Champagne Toast was too stuffy a name for such a raggedy guy. Champ sounded silly. Pagne sounded like “pain.” Toast? Hmm. “Hey, Toast,” Gabriella said.
The cat snarled at Max, ears flat, the name making no apparent impression.
WHEN DAVY TOLD ME BOBBY’S BIRTHDAY PARTY HAD BEEN moved to Tanti Baci, the news leveled me. I’m not sure what I’d pictured—that the party would be canceled altogether, or that Mimi would have a family-only gathering in Columbus? But imagining people gathered to celebrate the man who’d just been an utter shit to me and my daughter made me feel kicked to the curb.
Davy had tried to convince Big David not to make the cake after all, but Big David felt he had to—he’d committed to it months ago, and it was his business after all.
On the phone with Davy, I couldn’t disguise the hurt in my voice. I sniffed, amplified in his ear, and in just the right way, apparently, because an hour later, he and Big David were at the farm, Ava in tow, bearing ice cream—a pint for each of us.
Gabriella groaned and said, “I need to study!” as if they were torturing her, but she sat on the kitchen island to eat straight out of her pint.
“By the way, your goat is out,” Davy said. “She’s standing on your mailbox.”
I let them pamper us. I opened my ice cream, now perfectly soft. Davy remembered my favorite flavor—caramel with almonds. I tried not to think about eating ice cream with Bobby on our first date. Who were we? Who were those people?
Ava, immaculately made up and dressed, as always—she never looked like someone slowly losing her mind—ensconced herself on the couch. To my amazement, Champagne Toast loped in and curled up next to her. “Gerald!” Ava cried. “What’s this absurd contraption?”
We all looked at one another, curious. Ava didn’t comment on the fact that the cat was missing a leg and had a line of stitches marching like blue ants across his shaved shoulder.
Ava spooned the cat ice cream from her pint. She scolded him for bringing a mole into her bed. “Oh! My skin just shivers thinking of it, you naughty thing!”
Big David shrugged and said, “We never had a cat named Gerald. The memory must be from when she was a kid.”
The cat fished his way into Ava’s purse, pulling tissues and a compact from it, proving to be quite dexterous with his one front leg. I returned the items, then put the purse on the mantel.
“Well, the cat does need a name,” Gabriella said.
I told the story of his tag. “I was thinking of Toast.”
“Toast?” Davy asked. “Don’t you already have a cat named Gingersnap? And a horse named Biscuit? What is this? The all-carb barn?”
“All right, fine, he can be Gerald,” I said, laughing. “Well, Mr. Gerald, what do you think?”
The cat blinked his celery eyes.
“It’s decided, then,” I said.
If only the rest of my long list of decisions could be so easy.
I STARTED SMALL, WITH THOSE DECISIONS. I OPENED NEW accounts of my own. I called Helen and asked for referrals for a divorce lawyer. I made an appointment with one for next week.
After school, Gabriella and Tyler showed up for work. I’d worried about hiring them both, since I didn’t want to deal with any romance drama, but they were great.
Davy, and Olive, and even my mother—in a rare break from Anderson decorum—had wondered if Gabriella and Tyler had sex (or, as my mother had primly asked, “Do you think they’re . . . active?”). I hoped not but hated the look on everyone’s face when I admitted that they probably did. “Come on,” I said. “We were all having sex in high school! And we were ‘good kids.’ ” I’d asked Gabriella, of course, and her eyes flashed with disdain, “God, Mom. No,” but I’d told the same lie to my own mother. Working with animals had made it easy to talk with Gabriella about sex and reproduction from the time she was a toddler.
I made sure she knew I didn’t want her to have sex yet. (But I certainly didn’t tell her that I’d had sex in high school!) I’d tried to be honest about how sex changed things, how there was no going back once you had it, how you gave a little of yourself away. Maybe I was wrong; I didn’t know for sure. I’d be disappointed, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were, indeed, “active.”
Bobby had refused to talk to me about Gabriella having sex. He’d actually said, “I can’t go there. I don’t want to even think about it.”
I wanted to ask Gabby if she’d heard from her dad and see how she was doing, so when I had a break, I entered the kennel, braced for the inevitable bedlam of barking. The noise crescendoed, then quelled when the dogs saw who it was. What I liked about Gabriella and Tyler both was their ability to calm the animals with their presence. A quiet kennel is a lovely thing.
So is a clean kennel. These kids were thorough. I paid them well, but it went beyond that. Good help, real work ethic, was hard to find.
Zayna had had it, damn it. Now I was scrambling to hire a replacement. I couldn’t help wondering about Zayna’s family’s reaction. If her parents were so rigidly disapproving of her acting major, what the hell would they think of her sleeping with an older, married man?
Not my problem, I reminded myself. She deserved whatever hardships they threw at her now.
I was surprised to see dog poop in the three runs nearest the door. The kids should’ve gotten to this by now. Where were they? I saw them outside through the window. Oh, God, were they lost in one of their endless political debates again? It never ceased to amaze me that they actually discussed public policy. They made my high-school self seem so shallow.
Gabby had a beagle on a leash. Tyler had a springer spaniel. The poor dogs, though, were just standing there, bored, looking longingly into the distance.
I went to tap on the window, just to wave, say hi, perhaps jolt them into action, but I stopped with my knuckles a breath from the glass when I registered Gabby’s tearstreaked face.
Oh. Oh, poor Gabby. What a mess we’d made for her.
Comfort her, I willed Tyler. Why was he standing so far from her? Hug her, Tyler.
Gabby moved as if to walk away and Tyler reached out to stop her, which gave me a view of his face—he looked like Gabby had just told him his entire family had died.
Gabby led the beagle away. Tyler watched her go but didn’t follow. Devastation was loud and clear in his hunched shoulders, his frozen spine. The spaniel looked up at him and wagged her tail uncertainly.
What had just happened?
What had I just witnessed?
Long minutes crept by. He didn’t move.
I heard someone ask, “Where’d Dr. Anderson go?”
When Tyler finally walked back into the kennel, I busied myself with an Irish setter, treating her to a cursory exam she didn’t need. I looked in her ears and eyes, not seeing them at all, only seeing Tyler’s wounded expression.
This was about something more than the divorce.
I tried not to worry, but my next appointment was an expectant collie. As I palpated her abdomen, telling her beaming owner I felt four, possibly five puppies, I scolded myself. Don’t immediately jump to the worst-case scenario.
My anxiety ratcheted up several notches when Gabby waited outside my office for a ride home instead of going with Tyler, like she usually did.
When I asked about it, she shrugged and pointed to a red brick building we drove past. “There’s Dad’s apartment,” she said. Closer than I even thought. Depending on what floor he lived on, he might actually be able to see the clinic, an unsettling thought.
We drove home in silence, except for my desperate questions. “You okay?”
“Nope.”
“You wanna talk?”
“Nope.”
I squeezed her knee. She put a hand on mine and left it there while I drove.
After a moment I asked, “Did you hear from your dad today?”
“Nope.” She turned her head, looking out her window, so I couldn’t see her expression.
DURING THE NIGHT I CONVINCED MYSELF I WAS OVERREACTING. They’d simply argued. People argued, right?
Then I heard her vomiting in the bathroom.
When I asked her about it, she denied it. “God, Mom, what are you doing? Spying on me?”
She and Tyler barely made eye contact with each other at the clinic.
I focused on breathing in and breathing out.
I finally broke down and called Bobby. I was furious he’d ignored Gabriella for as long as he’d ignored me. I needed to talk to him about Gabby. If Gabby were in trouble, she’d need him. He’d be there for her . . . wouldn’t he?
“Sure, we can get together,” he said, as if I’d called to invite him for drinks. “I wanted to come get a few more of my things, anyway.”
I bit my lip so hard I tasted the rusty tang of blood.
After work, while Gabby was at debate practice, I found myself in the bizarre position of figuring out how to dress for my soon-to-be ex-husband. I didn’t want to “doll up” for him, but I felt compelled to look somewhat good. I put my hair up in a loose twist and settled for jeans and a fitted T-shirt. V-neck. I stood before the mirror and remembered Vijay telling me—when we took high-school anatomy together—that I had beautiful clavicles. I traced those bones with my fingers, remembering how stark they’d been when Bobby first met me.
I counted in my head. There were still three days left before Vijay left Africa.
Bobby knocked on the door, like a guest.
I froze, relieved he was here and full of dread that this moment had arrived.
We ended up in the kitchen, which bothered me because it seemed like Bobby’s turf. Before I could bring up my concern about Gabby, he started in on a list of things we needed to do: separate cell phone accounts, close joint accounts at the bank, discuss the farm. He’d made a budget of the utilities and mortgage to show me I couldn’t keep the farm. Oh, that’s not what he said. He said sweet things like, “I know you love this place, but this will be a lot for one person. How will you take care of it on your own?”
Smoldering began under my skin. “I’m not moving, Bobby.”
“Cam, I’m not trying to be an a*shole, but have you even called anyone to look at the roof? Or that corner of the barn? It’s been almost a week.”
“Well, you know, this week was, um . . . exceptional. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed. See, my husband left me and is sleeping with a twenty-two-year-old.”
He didn’t deny it this time. He pushed the budget across the kitchen island. “Just look at this, okay? We have to be practical about the finances, with Gabby going to college next year.”
At least he still remembered he had a daughter! I glanced at the budget and my nostrils flared. My ribs rose and fell in short breaths I imagined as puffs of smoke.
There was a print date in the corner of the paper. “You made this budget before you left.”
He closed his eyes a fraction too long, signaling his impatience.
“This is dated two weeks before you left. You knew you were going to walk out and what did you do? You sat at your damn desk and made a budget? You couldn’t give me even a hint?”
I wadded the budget into a ball in my fist.
He spoke to the Portuguese tile. “Cami, please know I just wanted to take care of you both.”
I flung the paper ball at him. It bounced off his chest onto the island between us.
“That isn’t taking care of us! You were taking care of details, of logistics, not of us.”
He picked up the crumpled budget and smoothed it flat.
“You don’t even see the difference, do you?”
My hands trembled so violently I clutched the pepper grinder to still them.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I did this so badly. I . . . I’m sorry.”
When I put my hands flat on the tile, he grabbed for one as if it were a lifeline. I gasped at the pain in my bite wounds, but he didn’t notice. He grasped my hand in both of his own, then pressed my palm to his cheek. “Oh, Cam, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The familiarity of that unshaven jawline felt right. I concentrated on his hands, hands that had caressed me, massaged my feet when I was pregnant, rubbed oil into my monstrous belly. He’d croon Frank Sinatra tunes to my navel. His raspy chin tickled in my memory, his voice buzzing through my taut, tight skin. These hands had held Gabriella before I even had. That image, of this man holding his naked newborn daughter, rocked into me and stole my breath.
I know you, I wanted to say. For a second the energy in the kitchen changed. I thought we might laugh and look at each other and say, “Shit! What did we just almost do? That was close!”
But, still holding my hand, he said, “If I could go back and do it differently I would.”
I pulled my hand away. He may want to leave me differently, but he still wanted to leave me. “I can’t imagine you not in my life,” he said. “You’ve been my best friend. You are my best friend. I hope you know that.”
I stared at him. What the hell?
His hand went to the gold cross he wore around his neck—a gift from his grandmother. He moved it back and forth on its chain, then brought it up over his chin and held it before his lips. The movements were so boyish.
“I don’t know if that’s how your little fantasy runs in your brain, that I’m going to be your buddy while you f*ck around and make an ass of yourself and your family, but it’s not going to play out like that.” The poison that welled up in me astonished me—an urge to hurt him. “I wouldn’t be friends with anyone who’s behaved in the cowardly, self-absorbed, narcissistic”—my brain scrambled for adjectives that would cut him—“despicable, dishonorable way you have.”
The injured look in his eyes was what I was after, but it enraged me further. How could he be hurt by what I said? How could he not already know it was true?
I took a deep breath, to get a grip, before I started throwing things. “We’re not going to be ‘friends,’ but we are Gabriella’s parents. We have to be good parents to her, no matter how we feel about each other.”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
I wanted to scream, Then why haven’t you called her? but I fought to keep level and sound sane. “I’m really worried about her. That’s why I called you.”
I saw him snap into focus, bringing that cross to his lips.
“I . . . I’m scared she might be pregnant.”
He stared at me for a second, as if translating what I’d said. Then he let the cross fall back to his chest and made a face, exasperated. “Cami,” he said disapprovingly.
I told him the scene I’d witnessed at the kennel, how they both walked around dazed.
Bobby crossed his arms and set his jaw.
“She threw up this morning,” I said. “Then she lied about it.”
He closed his eyes too long again. “Cami, I know you’re upset, but this isn’t fair.”
What did he just say? A year seemed to pass as we stared each other down. I finally formed words, “You think I’m making this up?”
He sighed. “I think you’re very upset and not thinking clearly—which is my fault, I admit—but Cami . . . I’m not coming home.”
Gravity seemed to triple, rooting me to my spot. I wanted to stab him with his own expensive, snooty knives—they were within arm’s reach. The image was too satisfying and frightening. I stood up and turned my back on him. “We’re done. You should go.”
He stood quickly, probably relieved to be dismissed. He paused, then asked, “Do you know if Gabriella is coming to the party tomorrow?”
“I don’t know if she’s going to your party because I don’t know if she even knows she’s invited!” I yelled. “Why don’t you talk to her and ask her yourself? You’re breaking her heart, you a*shole!”
He at least had the decency to look sorrowful. But then he asked, “If people ask, Uncle Tony or whoever, what do you want me to tell them? About, you know, why you’re not there?”
I opened my arms. “How about the truth? I know that’s apparently not your first instinct, but seriously, are you just going to avoid talking about it to people in hopes they don’t notice? Like you did with your mom?”
“That was low, giving her my address. You know I can handle her, but—”
“But what? Zayna was a little thrown by the wrath of Mimi?”
I’ve never seen someone look so ashamed. “You shouldn’t have given her the address.”
As sweetly as I could, I said, “I didn’t know your address. You wouldn’t tell me, remember?”
“You woke Gabriella up just to get back—”
“No, I believe your mother woke Gabriella up knocking on our door at two in the morning! Which she wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t been too big of a chickenshit to return her calls! What did you think she would do?” Bobby’s face told me he’d never considered this. Had I always been married to the village idiot and never noticed? I repeated, “You should go.”
The cross came back to his lips. He nodded. “I want to take a few more things with me.”
I stayed in the kitchen while he went upstairs. It was torture waiting for him to leave. I found Mr. Gerald, who’d scattered my purse’s contents across the living room, happily shredding a tampon on the couch. I cleaned up the mess, then put my purse in the microwave for safekeeping. I gave Gerald his antibiotic (accompanied by Exorcist-worthy yowls). I made an appointment with Enterprise Roofing. Finally, I could stand it no longer and walked up the stairs.
I stood in the doorway just as Bobby finished up. “Hey, Cam,” he said, his voice revealing a sense of hey-how-perfect-you’re-here. “You wanna give me a hand with this?” He picked up his computer monitor and gestured to a box that contained the keyboard, speakers, and assorted cables. “If you help me, we could do it in one trip. It’s starting to rain.”
I exhaled sharply, not really a laugh, not really a gasp. I walked down the stairs empty-handed.
Muriel pranced in and out of the open garage as I listened to Bobby take the two trips to the car. He didn’t say good-bye.
He didn’t tell me the goat was out.
I WAS AWARE OF BOBBY’S BIRTHDAY FROM THE MOMENT I woke at 3 a.m. on Saturday.
He always woke me on my own birthday with a dozen roses. He never seemed to remember, no matter how many times I’d drop it into conversation, that my favorite flowers were gladiolas.
Stop it, you’re being pathetic.
After doing the morning chores too early, I took the newspaper and went back to bed. Max snuggled up alongside me. Mr. Gerald even sat on one corner of the bed—having finally graduated from his Elizabethan collar—looking pissed, but I wasn’t fooled. He could just as easily be pissed downstairs by himself. Gingersnap had taken up camp in Gabriella’s room in protest, snuggling in my daughter’s armpit. The two cats couldn’t pass each other without hissing.
Just as the crossword was beginning to make me feel like a moron, Gabby came into my room and crawled into bed with me. My heart pounded. Was she about to tell me? If she didn’t, how long before I asked? Please, please, let me be wrong. Gingersnap followed and sat on the opposite bed corner from Gerald, both of them facing away, like gargoyles. We just lay there looking out the skylight above the bed, until I thought she’d fallen back to sleep.
“Dad wants me to come to his party,” she said. “Will it hurt your feelings if I go?”
“No! No, Gabby, no. You mustn’t think that, okay?” I rolled on my side, to brush her auburn hair off her forehead and touch the blue shadows under her eyes. “I don’t want you to feel you’re taking sides here. You should go.”
“I’m going to his apartment first,” she said, “then we’ll go to the party together. But I don’t want to act like everything is normal! I can’t pretend it’s just a birthday party. I mean, I haven’t seen him since Monday!”
“Did you tell him that?”
“No.” She made a face.
She looked up at the skylight again.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She sighed, this one irritated, not sad. “You can’t keep asking me that!”
“Sorry. What’s going on? Did you and Tyler fight?”
She shot me a look, wary. “Nothing is going on. Why are you always so dramatic?”
“You just don’t seem like yourself these days.”
“Well, my life isn’t like it used to be these days.”
The truth of her words cut like an incision. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about that.”
We lay there in silence.
“I guess I better go feed the crew,” she said.
“I already did.”
Instead of thanking me, she snapped, “God, are you ever going to let me do my job again?”
I picked up the newspaper. “You’re welcome.”
“Whatever.” She sounded as if I’d insulted her. She didn’t huff out, though. She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to me.
No one tells you when they place that fragile, blood-tinged baby in your arms just how much shit you will take from this person. No one warns you that you will take it and take it and take it. Because you have to. You will have no choice. Because you will love them beyond all reason.
“Do you think,” she asked shyly, “that Zayna will be there?”
“I have no idea, babe.” Surely he wouldn’t be idiotic enough to invite her. Not if his daughter would be there. But . . . everything I thought I knew about Bobby had blown away in the storm.
Even though I told Gabriella I didn’t want anyone to take sides, that was a big, fat lie. Reduced to eleven-year-old vulnerability, I wanted everyone to take my side.
After Gabriella left and party time approached, I called Helen.
“I’m coming over,” Helen said. “We’re gonna have a slumber party.”