“Be still,” I say. I am tempted to greet him in the mornings as my father once did Toto: “Hello, you old tail-wagging sonuvabitch.”
I tell Raj I love him, dozens of times a day. I want him to feel okay—safe, at home in the world. Betty doesn’t hear me when I bend to whisper to him. She seems to have become a little more deaf since her cancer and her memory has declined along with her ability to walk unassisted. Something in Betty’s head is surrendering. It is harder and harder for her to keep her balance when walking. After the ten o’clock news, on the way to her bedroom, she stops every two or three steps and looks around, uncertain and shaky, as if on a long trek. She no longer pauses to check the hymns.
Night after night, I follow behind her with my hands on her hips to keep her steady until we reach the bedroom where she puts on her gown, a nightly challenge as it is hard for her to raise her arms. She is always relieved when the gown, soft on her shoulders and my cheek when I hug her, is finally on.
I have ice cream when she is sleeping. I keep an old-fashioned long-handled teaspoon hidden in a cabinet and use it to ferret out pieces of chocolate and caramel from the bottom of the carton before anyone else can get to them. I call it my digging spoon. Betty is outraged when she discovers that the chocolate nuggets or bits of candy bar are missing. “This is supposed to have Heath Bar in it,” she cries out.
“Toffee causes tumors,” I tell her.
. . .
In another life, the gods may send me someone powerful or glamorous to share my existence on this earthly plane. But in this one, for now, Betty and Raj are fine enough. Already they are conspiring against me; I expect to be out of the will in about fifteen minutes. I ponder the question of whether there is an organization designed to rescue humans from rescue animals.
“Do you not understand that he doesn’t know what you are saying?” my cousin asks when she hears my endless conversations with my dog. “He’s not human!” I say, “I know he’s not human, but I think I may be a Labrador.”
I will move on. This won’t last forever. For now, the sound of Raj’s paws clicking on the floor as he prances makes me almost as happy as Betty’s occasional smiles. If I go to the store, she insists on looking out for Raj; she hates to see him have to go into his crate. When I return, I find them on the couch together. He is our loving friend, our little black dog.
Since he arrived and she became more engrossed in his activities, she makes her sounds much less. He is the noisy one now. I know this home is just for now, but I treasure our days. I feel different than when I arrived. Nothing magical or radical, just a little more comfortable with myself. A few more pieces have shifted into place. In my head there is a kind of early-morning quiet. Because I have come through for her. It has taken me so long to feel okay in my own skin, but I feel better, more at home in the world. Most days.
. . .
“What,” Betty asked suddenly one afternoon, “will you do in the future, after I’m gone?”
“Marry Dr. Tennan,” I said. It just flew out of my mouth.
“You could do worse,” she said.
. . .
Sometimes I think of how it will be when I am old. I am lying in my bed in the Liza Minnelli ward at Villa Fabulosa. I can hear the old queens singing songs from Evita in the Madonna Conference Room. Madonna is gone, but her cone bras and bones are on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
Someone comes into the room, tucks the sheet under your legs, asks if you are feeling like you can sleep tonight. He may or may not really be there at all; maybe you just need someone to listen, to answer. But you think he is there, a real person to break the night.
He is a kind man, and in the end, kindness is everything. The night is suddenly lonely. You cannot get your bearings. You have no idea where you are, so you ask questions, to try and keep from forgetting everything, who you are, where you have come, the people you loved the most:
“Where am I from?”
“Missouri,” says the man. “You have told me about it, the rivers and flowers and trees.”
“That town I remember with the foreign name?”
“Paris. It is gone now, I am sorry to say. There were floods, but the people you knew were gone before.”
“The roses are gone?”
The roses were beauty, faith, sharing, work, perseverance, memory, consolation. The roses were care.
You picture pink petals floating on still water.
“What is the capital of Portugal?” you find yourself asking.
“Lisbon.”
“Who am I from? Who were my people?”
“Betty and George?”
“She almost married the governor. My father would not have liked it. He loved her.”
“What is that stuff you drink at Christmas?”
“Eggnog.”
“Where is the place I said was pretty?”
“The green yard behind your old house.”
“Who am I from?”
“Betty and George . . .”
“Where will I go when this is over?”