“What’s up, sweetie?” she asked Evie. It was so, so good to be home, in her own kitchen, making a salad for a sailboat picnic, like it was just a regular day, like nothing was going on. Like her father wasn’t dying. Maybe there would even be sex tonight!
Once, long ago, Eliza had told Deirdre that her sex life with Rob was “robust.” She’d been tipsy on margaritas; if she hadn’t been, she never would have used such a ridiculous word. She’d laughed right after she’d said it, to cover her embarrassment, and she’d assumed Deirdre was laughing with her, but once Eliza stopped laughing she instantly saw a hooded, indefinable look cross Deirdre’s face—was it interest? Disgust? Envy?—and she’d swiftly changed the subject.
It was true, though, if a weird choice of words. But something shifted that year, when Rob was mired in Cabot Lodge, and it shifted again after the meeting with Phineas Tarbox. If Eliza had to put it into words she would have said that Phineas Tarbox had climbed into bed with them, settled himself between them.
She tilted her ear toward Evie like an attentive mother in a television commercial might do.
And Evie said, “Are you going to put Grandpa to sleep?”
Eliza stopped chopping cucumbers. “Evie! Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. Why don’t you jump in the pool or go ride your scooter around the block? It’s a beautiful summer evening.” In fact, it was sort of overcast and uncomfortably humid.
But Evie, bless her heart, wouldn’t put the subject to bed. She cocked her head at Eliza—she looked astonishingly adult when she did this, like a PTO president assessing a report from the treasurer and finding it wanting—and said, “Well, maybe you should.”
“Evie!”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” murmured Judith. She sat up straighter and looked interested.
Eliza squatted down until her eyes were at the same level as Evie’s eyes. She said very, very firmly, “Evie. Please understand. Nobody is putting anybody to sleep. Grandpa has cancer, yes, but he’s going to get treated for it, and he’s going to get better.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. “Maybe he’ll even come here, to see some doctors in Boston! Wouldn’t that be fun, to have Grandpa staying with us for a little bit?”
Judith coughed and rattled her ice cubes harder.
“You put Fred to sleep,” said Evie stoutly. Fred had been thirteen and suffering from severe arthritis, and Eliza had stood beside him in the vet’s office, cradling his head when the light went out of his eyes.
“I did not put Fred to sleep.” Eliza took a deep, cleansing breath, the way she’d learned to do at barre class. She never felt cleansed after the breaths, but other people seemed to believe in it, so she kept trying. “The vet put Fred to sleep. Because Fred was a dog. And he was suffering. Don’t you remember?”
“No,” said Evie.
“Of course you remember. His hind legs didn’t work any longer. And he wasn’t eating. He was uncomfortable. He was in pain, Evie, and it would have been cruel of us to let him be in pain when we could have done something to help him.”
“But…” Evie chewed on her lower lip; it was a habit that hung somewhere between adorable and unsanitary, since she was always opening up cuts that took eons to heal. “I heard you telling Daddy. You said his head hurts a lot, and that sometimes he sees two of something when there should be only one.”
Eliza blinked. “Also, like we talked about back then, dogs don’t think of the past and the future the way humans do. They live in the present, only in the present, so when they’re sick, being sick becomes their whole world.”
“Very Zen of them,” said Judith. The ice cubes ticked against each other as she moved toward the bar to pour herself another drink.
———
Lesson Number Three from Eliza’s mother:
Read. Read! You’ll want to read the books about girls with no mother. Anne of Green Gables. The Great Gilly Hopkins. Pippi Longstocking. Bambi! Some of these stories may seem far too young for you by the time Val gives you this letter but I want you to read them anyway. I want you to see that these creatures survive. I want you to understand that having a mother is not as essential as we’ve all been led to believe it is. I hate to think that you can live without me, Eliza, but even more than that I hate to think that you can’t.
———
Would it kill Judith to maybe grab a walnut to chop? Something? If Rob had married his college girlfriend Kitty Sutherland would Judith have offered to help with the cooking? Would Kitty Sutherland be making walnut pesto salad with roasted vegetables, or would she have her Fourth of July party catered?
She would have it catered. No question.
“Mom?” said Evie.
Teachable moment, thought Eliza. Keep going. She looked deep into Evie’s gigantic brown eyes and said, “When we put dogs to sleep, Evie, we’re relieving them of the pain they’re feeling at that moment. They don’t have the same concept of time that we have. They don’t have the same memories that we do. We don’t do that to people.”
“In some states, they do,” said Judith. “Oregon and so forth.”
“Judith,” said Eliza. “Not helpful.”
“But Fred always remembered where we kept the dog treats and the tennis balls. So he had a memory.”
She had Eliza there. Now Eliza was the one chewing her lip.
“Right. But it’s not the same.”
“How do you know?”
“Well,” said Eliza helplessly. “People have—studied it.”
“What people?” Evie had opened her eyes so wide that it looked like the rest of her features might fall into them.
“Scientists. Scientists have studied it. Dog scientists.”
“But how do they know? How a dog thinks?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. They do tests and things. Very scientific tests.”
Evie looked skeptical, as well she should. Eliza had no idea how anyone knew anything about a dog’s experience. “They know,” she said smoothly. “I promise you. They know.”
Evie allowed her eyes to scan the kitchen. Then she said, “Grandpa can’t do his job anymore, with the lobster traps.”
Deep breath. Just before coming home, Eliza had watched Charlie bump his hip into a small side table that had been in the living room since time began. It was a visual field cut from the tumor that made it happen, she knew that, even if her dad didn’t; the tumor was in the left lobe, so he’d experience the visual cut on the right side of both eyes. He’d hit the hip hard, she’d heard the thwack of bone against wood, and she’d waited, the way you did with a child, to see if he was going to cry or not. He hadn’t acknowledged anything. It must have hurt, though.
“Yes. Yes, that’s right, he can’t work right now. That doesn’t mean he won’t again.”
Of course he wouldn’t work again. Soon he wouldn’t even be able to drive his truck safely, never mind his boat—he might not be able to see if someone pulled out in front of him.
“But he’s not a dog, sweetie, he’s not living only in the present. He’s going to get medicine and see a new doc—”
“But he’s uncomfortable, right?” Evie interrupted, and selected another carrot round.
“Sometimes he’s uncomfortable.”