The Blessings of the Animals_A Novel

CHAPTER Thirty-Eight

THE COZY CHRISTMAS EVE AT MY PARENTS’ HOME TURNED out to be far more fun without Bobby, something even Gabriella admitted.
Had I held my breath my entire marriage, waiting to spring into motion at the first signs of Bobby’s unhappiness? There now seemed to be so much room and space for joy.
The Davids brought Jess, the mother of their child, with them. Much to my delight, I thoroughly enjoyed her. Down to earth, smart, with a wicked sense of humor, she fit right in and seemed at ease with everyone. I smiled at the way I caught her often rubbing her belly.
Everyone fawned over Zuzu, who cowered from my parents’ miniscule fox terrier and spent most of the evening in my lap. At nine months and forty pounds, she was a bit big for a lap dog.
I already liked Jess, but when Davy explained to her who Zuzu was, Jess looked at me, green eyes flashing, and said, totally deadpan, of Bobby, “That takes some damn nerve.”
How could I not love her?
Big David helped my mother braid cinnamon-roll dough into a candy cane cake, and Jess and Gabby iced it white and red. I secretly toasted with my glass of wine that if I ever was in a couple again, I wanted a man who loved my family, who’d embrace them like Big David did.
We heaped the Davids with baby gifts again, replacing all the gifts they’d given to Kim and baby Grace. I wondered how Grace’s first Christmas was. How often did the Davids think of her? Every waking moment? The guys told us they’d sent Christmas gifts to her. I loved them for their forgiving generosity, but I loved the new mom, Jess, even more when she presented them with a scrapbook of childhood photos of herself and all her family tree, plus an empty photo album to fill with pictures of their baby.
I watched my mother swing her hips to the side so that my father could take a spatula from a drawer, without either of them saying a word. Dad brushed confectioner’s sugar off her nose. I ached, watching that familiarity, that language without words.
I looked out a window at the dark Aperjeet house across the street. Mom told me the family had gone to New York for Christmas at Vijay’s this year.
I still hadn’t heard from Dubey, so I was grateful Helen had made me make plans.
When Gabby and I returned home, it was nearly midnight. “Wanna go to the barn with me?” I asked. “In case the animals have anything to say?”
She yawned. “Nah, Aunt Olive is picking me up really early.” As she opened the back door, Max, Gerald, and Gingersnap all rushed out to follow me, bowling Zuzu over into the snow.
I felt the childlike belief of maybe. Why else would they all want out on a bitterly cold night?
I WAS SEVEN WHEN MY FATHER FIRST TOLD ME THAT AT midnight on Christmas Eve, the animals could speak. We’d just come home from church and I’d fallen asleep in the car, so it was already dreamy and surreal. My mother carried Davy, and my father held my red-mittened hand.
“Shhh,” he said. “We have to sneak up.” We tried, but the snow squeaked. We got close to the barn and listened at all the stall doors. “Hear any words?” he asked, his breath hanging in clouds.
I shook my head, not sure I could hear anything over my pounding heart.
We crept into the barn aisle and huddled on the floor.
“Why will they talk tonight?” I whispered as our barn cats blinked at us from the hayloft.
“They get to talk for one hour each Christmas because they were so helpful when Jesus was born. The donkey carried Mary, the cow gave up his manger for a crib—”
“What’s a manger?” Davy interrupted.
“Like a feedbox,” I whispered. “Be quiet.”
“—the sheep gave him wool to keep warm, and the doves cooed him to sleep.”
“What do you think they’ll say?” I asked.
Dad rubbed his chin. “Usually they’ll tell if they’ve been mistreated.”
“Will God take Myra Engle’s pony away from her?” Myra Engle had hit her pony in the face with her crop one day at a horse show. My parents had been mortified, but perhaps even more so by the fact that I’d hit Myra—in the face—with my crop.
“We don’t know.” Mom pursed her lips, no doubt remembering that day.
Myra called her pony names and left him tied to the fence in the hot sun without water at horse shows. If her pony could talk, he’d have a lot to complain about.
My dad squeezed me and asked, “What would your pony have to say?”
I wasn’t worried about Roscoe. I wanted to know what Stormwatch would say. Would he tell on me? Would he reveal that twice now I’d stood in his feedbox and slipped onto his back?
I felt closer than ever to Stormwatch that year because he hadn’t told our secret. My dad had opened the top of his Dutch door. The horse had put his head into the aisle and whinnied toward me. My heart had lodged thick in my throat. But then he’d snorted, sounding only like a horse.
Dad had let me give Stormwatch a shiny red Christmas apple and a candy cane.
None of the animals spoke to us that Christmas Eve or on any others afterward. “Not everyone can hear them,” my mother had said, by way of consolation.
I’d had no doubt that I could. If they were to speak, I’d hear them. They just weren’t talking.
HERE IN MY OWN BARN, THERE WAS NO HOPE OF “SNEAKING” up with the entourage that followed me. Moonshot was still out in his paddock, in spite of the cold. I wondered if I should hammer boards up to make him a little shelter until Ginger took him away? Or at least get him a blanket?
I’d led him into his stall a few times, but he always promptly marched back out. If I shut him in, he fretted and paced. I couldn’t stand to do that to him, not after all the progress we’d made.
The temperatures had dropped to a point, though, that I needed to close his back door to keep the rest of the barn warm. It hurt me each time I closed the door, shutting him outside.
In the barn, Biscuit snored, lying down asleep. He didn’t seem likely to burst into conversation any time soon. Neither did Luna, on her side, her enormous belly rising and falling with her breaths. I hugged myself in my parka, then checked my watch. I had three minutes before the hour. I waded into Moonshot’s clean, knee-deep straw and opened his back door. Max snuggled close to me when I sat in one corner. Zuzu clambered onto his back and promptly fell asleep. Muriel snuggled into my other side, occasionally nibbling my thigh through my jeans. Gerald hopped into my lap, which prompted Gingersnap to sulk in the stall door.
“You two can get along for a few minutes,” I said. “It’s Christmas!” She opted to lie alongside Max. I closed my eyes and tipped back my head. I cringed to remember that last Christmas I’d had sex with Bobby even though I hadn’t really wanted to. He’d so rarely initiated it by that point that I’d known not to turn it down. I’d always had this bizarre belief that the coming-together would save us somehow. But I’d turned my head at one point and noticed the clock saying 12:07—why did I remember that?—and had thought, “If the animals talk, I’ll miss it.” I’d felt so guilty at that thought that I threw myself into the sex, giving an Oscar-worthy performance.
An exhalation of breath sounded so like one of Bobby’s deep sighs that I opened my eyes. Moonshot stood in the doorway, his neck craned toward us.
“Come on in. Join the party,” I whispered.
He stepped into the deep straw, snuffling around. He lowered his velvety muzzle to my nose. “Anything you’d like to say?” I asked. “Now’s your chance.”
To my amazement, he dropped his haunches to the straw. With a mighty groan he bent his knees, too, and lay down, his legs tucked in like a cat’s. He groaned again, a sound much like approval. Then he flopped onto his side, his neck and head in the fluffy straw.
Gerald stood in my lap and reached his one front paw to touch the tear on my cold cheek.
When I crept away—I’d closed his door partway, leaving a crack he could easily nudge open if he felt the need to leave—I carried Zuzu up to Gabriella’s bed.
Gabriella murmured, “Did they talk to you?”
My throat tightened. “Yes,” I whispered. “They did.”
WHEN GABBY LEFT IN THE MORNING, THE DAY STRETCHED before me without a single commitment until I went to Helen and Hank’s in the afternoon. I’d expected to feel sad, but instead I felt peaceful.
I found Moonshot still in his stall, as content as if he’d stayed there from day one. I took a chance and put his breakfast in his feedbox rather than outside. He ate it. Progress.
Maybe I simply had to ask for what I wanted. I resolved to do just that.
I broke down and called Vijay. I got his voice mail, as usual. I closed my eyes, savoring that deep, rich voice. “Hey you,” I said. “Good to hear your voice. This is the first Christmas since we were kids that I won’t see you. It doesn’t feel right. I . . . I really miss you.” I paused. What did I end with? “I—” I wanted to say I love you, but the pause grew too long, so I closed my phone.
I knew I’d done the right thing, but damn, did it have to hurt so much?
When my phone rang, my heart leaped. It wasn’t Vijay but Dubey. “You know what we should do?” he said. “Go sledding.”
We had a blast, careening down my back hill on Gabby’s old runner sled and a disk sled. Max, Zuzu, and Booker chased us, barking until they were hoarse. Muriel followed us, too.
We tumbled together in the snow at one point and ended up face to face, me on top of him. I was giddy, and it was on my lips to say, “May I kiss you?” when Muriel climbed on my back, rolling us apart.
Back in the house, I built a fire and opened some wine. I felt terrified at what I’d almost done, but also reckless, looking for another opportunity. I knew I was just switching the Dubey fantasy for the Vijay fantasy. It didn’t mean that either man was right for me.
“Where’s Gabriella?” he asked. “With her dad?”
I told him the story. “Olive and Nick took her to Columbus today.”
“They’re engaged, right?” he asked.
“Yep. The wedding’s in May.”
He sighed. “Ah, well. Everyone makes mistakes.”
I’d been raising my glass to my lips but stopped. “You think your marriage was a mistake?”
“Hell, yes. Wasn’t yours?”
“No.” That surprised me. “It ended badly, but I’ll never say I wished it hadn’t happened.”
I thought about that later, after Dubey and I had gone to Helen and Hank’s and eaten ourselves sick on rack of lamb. After we’d laughed and laughed and eaten good fruitcake. (“Yes, there really is such a thing,” Hank had said.). After Dubey hadn’t kissed me again at my door.
Before Gabriella came home I thought again, I will never say I wish I’d never married Bobby. Our marriage had been reckless, perhaps. Not well thought out. Certainly not maintained. But not a mistake. His leaving me had been the catalyst for the greatest life change I’d ever known.
He’d given me a gift the day he walked out. Okay, so he’d delivered the gift wrapped in a poopy diaper, but once I’d picked through all that shit, I’d found diamonds. I felt more love for him right at that moment than perhaps I’d ever felt.
Maybe someday I’d even be able to thank him.
That someday seemed very far away when we got the word that Bobby was remarried.
To a woman we’d never heard of.
In Vegas.