In an Instant(78)
My mom rolls toward my dad, and sensing her eyes, he blinks in the morning as a smile creases his face. As I watch them, I imagine them when they first met and how amazing they must have been, the kind of couple who turned heads and stirred hearts, bold and uncompromising—Scott-and-Zelda kind of wonderful.
When I was young, I witnessed it, their amazingness—their over-the-moon attraction to each other, their energy and passion. At night, Chloe and I would hear them through our wall: laughter, muffled moans, the creaking of their bed. We would pinch our noses and cover our mouths to stop our giggles. In the morning, my mom would bound down the stairs in my dad’s sweatshirt and a pair of his boxers, and he would smile, leer at her legs, and lift and lower his eyebrows. And my mom would tease, “Daddy’s in an awfully good mood this morning.” As she passed him, his hand would trail across her behind. “A very, very good mood,” he would answer, and my mom would blush.
As we got older, our sleep was interrupted less, until over time, the disruptions ceased altogether.
It’s been years since I’ve heard them. But last night, as I sat on my old bed beside Chloe, the walls echoed with the sounds of that long-ago passion. Chloe rolled her eyes, then put on her headphones to drown them out, a smile on her face.
This morning they bask in the afterglow, worn out and wholly in love. My mom lies with her head on my dad’s shoulder as her fingers comb the hair on his chest.
Across from them, on the dresser, is a photo of our family: our annual Christmas portrait. As always, we are dressed in matching outfits, all of us in jeans and black tops, the six of us seated on a large rock in front of the ocean.
“Ann?” my dad says.
“Hmmm?”
“Can I tell you something?”
Her hand stops combing the ringlets as she tenses, knowing by the tightness of my dad’s voice that his next words will likely break the spell.
My dad’s jaw is locked forward and his stare fixed on the photo. He closes his eyes and says, “Sometimes I’m relieved he’s gone.”
He squeezes his eyes tight at the awfulness of the confession as my mom says, “Shhh.” She wraps her arm around him and lifts her face to kiss away the tear that has escaped from his eye. “It doesn’t lessen your love. It’s just who he was.”
And she’s right. Because the thing about a boy like Oz is no matter how much you love him, you also hate what he does to your life, the way he sucks the energy from it and uses up all the air, so relentless and demanding it’s like sometimes you can’t breathe. None of us admitted it when he was alive, but we all felt it.
My dad trembles with his guilt and his grief, emotions he’s held inside since waking in the hospital to discover the awful truth, and my mom continues to hold him, his confession one only she can understand and forgive.
91
Finn the Mighty is at the shelter with Chloe, though today is the last day Chloe will bring her along. Brutus was adopted this morning, so Finn the Mighty no longer has playmates, and she detests being locked in a kennel with no friends.
She roars and roars her unhappiness until finally Chloe relents and lets her out of her cage. Finn runs in circles around the office, tumbling over herself and having all sorts of fun chasing a lint ball that blows and twirls just out of reach. Chloe sits at the desk, reviewing the charts of their new charges and making notes for the night crew.
The lint ball drifts, bounces up, then floats out the dutch door that leads to the dog kennels, and I watch in horror as Finn leaps after it with just enough force to crack open the door. Chloe doesn’t notice, her attention tight on her work.
The kitten coils and pounces, just missing the elusive piece of fuzz and sending it whirling down the path and straight into the kennel of Hannibal, the German shepherd. Finn bounds after it, easily slithering between the posts.
Growl.
Shriek.
Finn’s fur bristles, poufing her to twice her size, though she is still no larger than a softball. Hannibal bares his teeth, and the other dogs, now aware, bark wildly.
In the next second Chloe is there, her hand on the gate.
“Don’t,” Eric yells, racing in from the yard.
Chloe glances at him, and I watch as something dangerous crosses her face. Then she opens the door and steps inside.
She scoops Finn the Mighty into her arms and whirls to face the shepherd, her eyes narrowing as if challenging the beast, and the dog crouches as his hackles lift.
A bucket crashes beside him, causing the dog to turn. “Over here, Lecter,” Eric says as he charges into the kennel. He circles away from Chloe, and Hannibal shifts and snarls.
“Chloe, go,” Eric hisses, then waves his hands in front of Hannibal to keep the dog’s attention. “That’s right. Come on, big boy, you want a piece of this?” He wiggles his fingers in invitation.
Chloe runs with Finn the Mighty out the gate and swings it open wide, keeping herself and the kitten behind it so it is a shield. Hannibal’s eyes dart from Eric to his chance at freedom, the shelter yard glowing through the open door at the end of the kennels, and mercifully he chooses freedom, racing through the open gate and straight for the outdoors.
Chloe charges after him and slams the door shut behind him, then races back to the kennel.
Eric sinks to his knees. “Shit,” he says as he bends over his thighs and sucks in air.