The Blessings of the Animals_A Novel

CHAPTER Thirty-Nine

THE CALL CAME ON DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH, AFTER A hellacious day at the clinic. A routine spay had uncovered a poor collie’s abdomen full of tumors. A husky was not responding to treatment for lymphoma. A spayed cat had ripped out her stitches. I struggled to remain present with the client in the room rather than all those sullen, waiting faces in the lobby each time I opened the door.
Aurora and I stayed two hours past closing. I was alone and exhausted when Olive called. She got right to the point. “Bobby got married.”
Sometimes news is so foreign you have no idea how to wrap your brain around it. In my head I said, I know that. You were there, you ditz. Eighteen years ago.
It took a full thirty seconds for my brain to absorb her statement.
Oh. Bobby got married again.
“That goddamn son of a bitch,” Olive said. “He married some whore in Vegas.”
With Olive, I couldn’t tell if that whore was literal or just an opinion. Had Bobby been drunk?
She told me what she knew: the woman’s name was Lydia. She was a real-estate agent from Dayton, divorced also. They married on Christmas Day.
“He called my mom first,” Olive said. “She is freaking out.”
“Oh, Gabby,” left my lips. Hadn’t she had enough upheaval for one year?
Olive stopped ranting. I heard the anger now for the pain it truly was. “I’d take a bullet for her. You know that. I told Bobby I’d put the bullet in his head if he kept hurting my niece.”
I moaned. “How do I tell her this?”
“Maybe he’ll grow a sack and tell her himself.”
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, HE DID. THE DAVIDS HAD BROUGHT her back from a movie and we were sitting in my kitchen eating dinner when she got the call. Her face lit up with unmistakable joy at recognizing his ring tone, although she tried to mask it.
“Take it,” I said, breaking my own rule that we didn’t answer calls at the table.
When she left the room, I told the Davids. It’s hard to describe the expression that crossed their faces in unison.
Gabriella returned, looking small and shaken. I hugged her. “I found out today, too.”
She sat at the table, her face bewildered.
“Do we even know this woman?” Davy asked.
Big David asked, “Does he?”
“He knew her for two days,” Gabriella said.
“Two days,” Big David repeated.
“And they’re married,” Davy said. “Legitimate. Official. Married.”
The somber mood was broken when Zuzu snatched a biscuit from the table and ran away.
NEW YEAR’S EVE CAN BE A MISERABLE, FRAUGHT HOLIDAY for a single person. New Year’s Eve is more of a couples’ holiday than even Valentine’s Day. That level of anxiety only increases when you learn your ex has remarried within a year of leaving you.
Gabriella would be spending the night at Amy’s. The Davids went to a midnight 5K race downtown—Davy to run, Big David to help feed the runners afterward. I turned down invites for New Year’s Eve parties from Aurora, Hank and Helen, and Olive and Nick.
I’d asked Dubey about his New Year’s plans one day when we took the dogs for a hike, but when he replied with that same evasive defensiveness he’d had about Christmas, I dropped the subject.
Vijay called at long last. I stared at his name and didn’t answer. So much had changed I didn’t think I knew how to talk to him. “Hey, Cam,” his voice mail said. God, that voice vibrated into my fingertips. “I miss you, too. Sorry to have dropped out of sight for so long. I’d love to talk to you, see you, if you feel like it—I’m in Dayton—although I would understand if you’re not talking to me. It was good to hear your voice, even if it’s on the machine.” I replayed the message four times, just to get high on that voice. I’d see him, and soon, but not tonight.
I went to the clinic, which was open only for half a day today. Bobby came to pick up the now pinless Zuzu while I was gone, which I thought best.
Dubey left a message, “I know it’s the height of cheekiness to expect a beautiful woman doesn’t have New Year’s Eve plans already, but I thought it was worth a try. Call me.” For a split second I almost did, but I decided that this New Year’s Eve was mine entirely.
On the way home, I picked up my favorite Indian takeout, a good bottle of wine, and some Graeter’s ice cream—coconut chocolate chip.
I took a nap, with Max’s head on my chest, Gerald in the opposite armpit, and Gingersnap across my feet. I savored the sensation of warm, living bodies cuddled up beside me. Survivors, all of us. Eventually I built a fire and ate my chicken tikka saag. I took a bubble bath, sipping a glass of wine.
I made sure I was at my church when midnight rolled around. I stood with Moonshot in his stall and looked out his open back door at the sliver of moon that matched his own. When the year turned, gunshots and firecrackers echoed through the winter air. My phone trilled in my pocket.
“Happy New Year, Mom,” Gabriella said. “Are you at a party?”
“Just a small one.” Moonshot turned his mighty haunches to me. “With some close friends.”
“SEE? MARRIAGE RUINS EVERYTHING,” HELEN SAID WHEN I told her about my strange New Year’s Day lunch with Vijay. “The proposal alone was enough to derail a beautiful friendship.”
I felt that broken-rib ache as soon as I saw him. I knew his whole history—his first crush, how he couldn’t swim until he was in middle school, how he was in a car accident in high school that his parents to this day didn’t know about. I knew the sounds he made when sleeping. The smell in the crook of his neck. Those silky black hairs.
And there he sat, a total stranger.
All our former ease was gone. We pushed our food around on our plates. I asked about India and got a lame “It was great. I did a lot of thinking.”
At one point I blurted, “Hey. Remember how we said we wouldn’t ruin our friendship? We promised. We swore.”
He nodded, looking down at his plate. When he looked up, he said, “I know. But . . . but I wasn’t prepared for how I would feel. For what it would feel like when . . .” An unbearable amount of time passed before he continued, “ . . . when I realized you didn’t want me.”
The words punched me in the gut. “I never said I didn’t want you, Vijay. You’re not allowed to believe that. It’s not true.”
“But you said—”
“I said ‘not yet,’ and I told you why I was scared. I told you I worried that I’d never see you, and your answer was to disappear for, what? Almost three months?”
He studied me, peering at my face as if something were written there. Eventually he whispered, “What do you want from me, Cam?”
“I want you,” I said with no hesitation. “But you’re never here. And I don’t mean here in Dayton, I mean with me.”
“I don’t know how to convince you.”
“Try something. Try anything.”
“It feels like a test.”
“It sort of is. But I’m not testing you. Marriage is. Marriage is a hard, hard test. Harder than any exam we ever took. We have to decide that we won’t fail again.”
“Are you dating that guy? The one you danced with?” He looked only at his plate.
“No, Vijay, I’m not. I’ve gone to dinner with him, on hikes, whatever, but I’m not ‘seeing’ him. I want you, Vijay. I want things to work with you.”
He looked up and said, “I went on a couple dates.”
The old ache in my ribs flared to life. “You did?”
“What?” The question was a challenge.
“Nothing. I’m just . . . surprised, I guess. And a little . . .” Heartbroken? Devastated? Flattened? I made a face.
“I want to be married, Cam. I can’t just wait, you know, forever, for this indefinite test.”
Everything I said to him was wrong. “I tried to be honest,” I whispered. “If we can’t talk about being married, then how can we possibly expect a marriage to work?”
“I love you, Cami.” His voice trembled as he said it.
“I love you, Vijay.” I took his hand. “So much it hurts me.”
“And that’s not enough.” It was a statement, not a question.
I paused too long, forming a response. I felt it happen—those seconds felt like years, that silence became an affirmation. He pulled his hand away.