The Beginning of After

Chapter Sixteen



The hot and humid July turned into an even hotter, more humid August. Spending most of my time inside, however, I barely noticed. Between the house, Ashland, and Suzie’s office, my only jaunts into the real world were the dog walking and my quickie lunches with Eve. The sounds of this summer were the hum of air conditioners and the huh, huh, huh of panting dogs.

At night, sometimes Meg would come over to watch a movie. She never invited me to her house. It felt like she needed a break from something, although I didn’t ask her what.

Mr. Churchwell had arranged for me to take the Regents exams at a nearby high school, because our school district was too small to have their own summer testing. I’d taken a bunch of practice tests during the previous few weeks; they were a great way to make me drowsy late at night when I couldn’t sleep. So for two mornings in mid-August, I sat in a gym filled with students I didn’t know and lost myself in questions, answers, and essays.

When I was done and driving home, I thought of the phone call I would have made to my father.

Hey, Dad, I think I did well. I had to write a presentation on the benefits of weight-bearing exercise, so instead of celebrating with ice cream, let’s go for a nice long walk. Just kidding!

The day after the exams, I’d just barely woken up when I heard the phone ring, then Nana call out that it was for me. She’d stopped coming into my room to deliver anything weeks ago.

“It’s Eve,” said Eve sort of breathlessly, with no “Hi” or anything.

“What’s up?” I asked, confused. I wasn’t supposed to be at work until ten, although the hospital opened at nine.

“Your friend is here, with his dog.” She was practically whispering.

“David?”

“He wants to leave him here. Board him, I guess.”

I was so shocked that I couldn’t say anything.

“I thought you’d want to know ASAP. I’m stalling him, saying I have to do some paperwork. So he’s here . . . if you want to . . . see him.”

Now I could hear the restrained anger in Eve’s voice. She’d been around enough people dumping their pets; she knew the signs.

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

I jumped out of bed and threw on the previous day’s clothes, which were still lying in a heap on my floor, and rushed downstairs, pausing just long enough to tell Nana there was an emergency at work.

The traffic lights were with me and I made it at the fourteen-minute mark. Mr. Kaufman’s Jaguar was still in the parking lot, and I pulled up next to it, even though I was supposed to park in the back with the other employees.

I grabbed the front door handle and paused for a moment, trying to slow down my heartbeat. Things had happened so fast, I wasn’t even sure what I felt. I just knew I needed to talk to David but didn’t want to seem like a maniac.

Once in the door, I scanned the waiting room. Empty.

Then I saw him, behind the tall round rack of greeting cards in the corner, which the hospital sold as a fund-raiser for the ASPCA. He had dropped a card and was picking it up, dusting it off.

He raised his eyes to look at me and then stood all the way up.

“Fantastic,” he said dryly.

I took a step forward, then held out both hands as if hoping to catch some answers.

“What the hell, David?” I tried to keep my voice even.

He shot a dirty look at Eve, who had sunk so low behind the front desk you could only see the top of her head, and gingerly put the greeting card back in its rightful spot on the rack.

“What the hell is that I’m leaving. I can’t take Mash with me.”

“I don’t understand.”

David glanced at Eve again. “Can we talk outside?”

I examined his face now. He seemed calm and resolved, in the saddest of ways. I motioned for him to follow me and led him out the front door, then around a corner of the building where there was some shade.

David took a deep breath, and although there were some steps behind us going up to the side entrance, he remained standing, and so did I.

“He’s not going to wake up,” said David. “My dad. That’s what the doctors are saying.”

I folded my arms across my chest in a Go on type of gesture.

“I can’t stay by that bed anymore. I’ll puke or something. And things are messed up with my cousins.”

“Where are you going to go?” I asked, trying to make it sound challenging rather than curious.

“My buddy Stefan . . . he used to live here but moved to California. Maybe you remember him?”

I shrugged, even though I knew exactly who he was talking about.

“Anyway, I’m going to go check things out with him.” He looked up at the brick wall of the hospital, and I could see him start to break down. Fighting it. “I have to be gone.”

I wanted to sit or lean against the building or do something else besides stand there face-to-face with David with nothing holding me up. To make things worse, I had a split-second urge to reach out and touch him. I wanted to hang on to my fury, but it was already shrinking away.

To be gone.

I’d thought about it too. Sometimes my life here felt like a cage where I could never escape the pain. At other times, it felt like the only firm ground on earth. How could I fault David for tipping one way while I was tipping another?

“Why didn’t you call me?” I said softly. “Why wouldn’t you leave Masher with us?”

“That medication is a lot of work,” he said, almost whining, but then pulled his face straight. “You have enough on your plate. I figured, if I boarded him here, he could still see you.” David paused, looked at the wall again, and then added, “Plus, I didn’t want you to know I was leaving until I’d already done it.”

Now he forced a smile, adding, “Because, you know, we wouldn’t want to have a scene or anything.”

The thought of David being across the country, where there was no hope of seeing him occasionally, felt like one more thing to miss. I didn’t expect this feeling. And I didn’t like it.

“Please let me take him,” I said, trying to focus on Masher so that sensation would go away. “You know he won’t be happy in a kennel.”

David bit his lip and nodded. Grateful, like he’d been hoping for this from the beginning.

“Can you go in and tell Eve? She has to hear it from you.”

He nodded again, then headed into the building. Which left me standing by myself, not sure what to do next.

Since David was going to disappear without a trace, maybe I should beat him to the punch.

I checked my cell phone and saw that I didn’t officially have to be at work for another half hour. It would be just enough time for me to drive home and change clothes before coming back, at which point I knew David would be already on the road.

And we would not have said good-bye, just like he’d wanted.