Jason and I walked out together, hand in hand. The frog door knocker slapped against the wood as we shut the door. Jason would never see his mother again. I, however, would not be so lucky.
“He was a handsome man,” Detective Keith Jackson casually remarked while glancing at the photo of Jason.
“Yes, he was,” I said.
“Who did he take after?”
“Excuse me?”
Detective Jackson waxed on. “I look exactly like my mother. No offense to her. And my sister, if you can believe it, looks like our father. I’m just wondering, did Jason take after his mom, Gertrude? Same-shaped face, or ears? Lots of hereditary markers in the ears.”
I had been thinking about Gertrude seconds before, but her name coming out of the detective’s mouth was even more jarring than hearing desk-duty guy mention my veterinarian.
“What?” I answered reflexively.
The detective tried again. “You have met Gertrude Hollander, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Of course I have,” I said.
Detective Jackson nodded, as if to confirm I was correct. He sat still for a moment, and was in no hurry to flip over the fourth photo. He made it clear with his body language that we were going to stay on the topic of Jason, and his mother, for a while. And I made it clear with my body language, as best I could, that because I had nothing to hide, that was just fine by me. I even smiled a little. Because I could tell the giant strong detective was now getting chilly himself, since the air-conditioning never stopped blowing. I remembered reading somewhere that the reason women always seem cold is because most office buildings, museums, theaters, and the like have temperature controls designed to keep a man who weighs about 170 pounds, wearing a full suit, comfortable. Leaving women to fend for themselves with small space heaters and shawls. I took comfort in knowing that this interview was breaking the detective down, just as much as it was rubbing me raw.
CHAPTER 28
LOVE
Once we were engaged, Jason told me he wanted to get a dog. He grew up with dogs and missed having them around. And he always enjoyed seeing dogs at weddings. Bringing the rings to the altar, wearing bow ties, sitting with the wedding party making staged photos seem a little more candid. But I worried about Mr. Cat.
I asked, “What if they don’t get along?”
“We will make sure that they do.”
“But what if they don’t?”
“I promise Mr. Cat will be okay.”
And I worried about other things too. Like, “I’ve never had a dog, I have no idea what to do.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“But . . .”
“But what?”
The real “but” I would save for my next session with Alisha. I knew she would be able to pull out of me my true aversion to getting a dog.
While sitting on her couch, I finally got to it: “But what if I don’t have enough love to share with Mr. Cat and Jason and a dog? I’m happy just the way we are.”
Alisha reminded me that my favorite Ellie quality, one I often talked about, was her belief that joy brought more joy, and there was no finite amount. Alisha said there was only so much time in the day, so if I was worried about making my schedule work with dog walks and vet visits and such, that was a reasonable concern. But if I’m open to it, my capacity for love is limitless. So fearing I would run out of love was not a reasonable reason to not get a dog.
Jason and I went to a no-kill shelter, figuring by rescuing a dog from there, we were saving two lives: the one we rescued and the one that would fill the space of the one we rescued. A small fawn boxer weighing in at forty pounds, every rib showing, that the shelter had named Star, caught my eye. They said she was about three years old, but it was hard to tell for sure. She had the kindest eyes, and when they brought her out of her crate to say hello, her little nub of a cropped tail wiggled with glee. She nuzzled up to Jason and me and trotted by our sides, as if to say, I’m already yours. And she was. We filled out the paperwork and proudly walked her out of the shelter.
We immediately drove to the veterinarian, Dr. Hamilton. He was able to fit us in and gave “Star” a once-over. Heart and lungs and eyes and ears looked and sounded good, and the shelter had already spayed her. She desperately needed a flea bath, a regular bath, a teeth cleaning, and about fifteen more pounds. The vet said, based on her general condition, that she was probably used by a backyard breeder to push out puppies, way more litters than her little body would have liked, and then they abandoned her when she could no longer get pregnant. He punctuated all this with, “I could kill those people.” I probably could too, if given the chance. I just nodded in agreement.
After all shots and baths were given, the receptionist who had thought the name Mr. Cat was meta asked what we were going to name her. Mrs. Dog seemed too preposterous. And neither of us loved the name Star. As if on cue, our little boxer dog pushed her newly clean and soft snub-nosed face into a box of toys for sale and pulled out a stuffed kangaroo.
“Kangaroo?” Jason asked. It was adorable and perfect.
“Yes!” I turned to the receptionist. “Add the toy to our bill, please.”
She smiled at us. “The toy is on the house.”
As I lay in bed, snuggled into contortions with Jason and Kangaroo and Mr. Cat, I felt a deep contentment. I was at peace, happier than ever before, because not only did I have a fiancé and a cat and a dog that I profoundly loved, I also had the knowledge that I could love and love and love and never again have to worry that I would use it all up. In these moments in bed, I knew this was the meaning of life, and I let the constantly running to-do list in my head briefly fall away. Invitation fonts, color schemes, and signature cocktail decisions could wait until tomorrow.
Ten months after the proposal, Jason and I got married on the beach in Key West. Kangaroo wore a lavender collar that matched the sash on my dress; our wedding cake was composed of tiered single-serving key-lime-pie tartlets since key lime pie, I would eventually find out, was Jason’s favorite of all desserts. The top tier was made with sugar-free pie filling just for him.
We did not invite Gertrude. After the blowup about the strong coffee, he suggested they go to family therapy or speak to a pastor of some sort, if that made her more comfortable, to work out the very old, deep, unhealthy patterns in their mother-son relationship. Gertrude refused. So Jason took a stand and cut her out of his life. He survived childhood without her; he could certainly survive adulthood without her as well, especially now that he was going to therapy regularly on his own and had a lot more coping tools in his own toolbox.
Our wedding felt like a warm bath filled to the brim with bubbles of jubilance. Everywhere we looked, there was someone we loved, watching us vow to love each other. Ellie and Spencer and their baby girl, Molly. My parents. Jason’s father was not there because he had died from a heart attack two months earlier, but he had been invited. Thanks to therapy and breaking away from the belief that his mother was a saint and his father a demon, Jason had reconnected with him and they both made amends before the end.