Lily and the Octopus(22)

I hand Jeffrey the flashlight and crouch down next to Lily, who cowers on the gravel in the harsh puddle of light. I place my hands as the vet instructed, on either side of her under her abdomen, and I squeeze her soft bladder, in and back, in and back. Nothing. The light glints off the staples that run the length of her back. She’s laced up like a football.

“Anything?” Jeffrey asks.

I tip her up and look underneath for any evidence that she has peed. “Nothing.” I run through the steps again. “The doctor said it feels like a water balloon?”

“Yes. Like a water balloon. About the size of a small lemon.”

Lily’s abdomen does feel like a water balloon. Soft and squishy. Expressing her bladder was not something I had steeled myself for on the flight back from San Francisco. I thought I had prepared mentally as well as I could. I drank coffee instead of liquor. I stayed awake instead of sleeping. I made a shopping list for all the things we would need on the back of a napkin: a pen to keep her quarantined to a small area, blankets so she wouldn’t slip on the hardwood floors, toys that would keep her mentally engaged without exciting her physically. Treats—healthy ones, so that she wouldn’t gain weight during the inactivity of recovery. Carrying added pounds would just be additional stress on her spine.

Learning to express a dog’s bladder, however, was not on that list, despite how obvious it seems to me now. The vet who discharged us laid down a weewee pad on the cold metal examining table and showed us just how it was done. She made it seem so effortless, I assumed I had understood the lesson. Turns out I was wrong. We haven’t been able to get her to pee since we left the hospital.

“My poor girl. The indignity of it all.” I hoist Lily in the football carry that was demonstrated for us, supporting her hindquarters, careful to avoid the tree branch above. “Let’s go to bed.” Frustrated, Jeffrey switches off the flashlight. I know this means she may release her bladder in her sleep, in our bed, but we’ll just have to get up and change the sheets. There’s no squeezing her any harder.

Inside, I set her down on a blanket and she stands upright. I’m amazed by this progress, even though she can’t yet walk. She can stand, unsteady though she is, and that in itself is a huge accomplishment. For now, that’s enough. I read the instructions again on Lily’s red prescription bottles and select a Tramadol for pain and a Clavamox to ward off infection and seal them into a pill pocket. She gobbles up the treat.

“Monkey, look at you. You’re standing.”

“My name is Lily.”

“I know it is.” I rest my hand on the top of her head, and her eyes blink heavily. She is only seven, but for the first time she looks old. A strip of bare skin runs down her back where the staples are. She looks sad, disrobed of her mahogany fur.

“What happened to you?”

Lily seems to concentrate on remembering. “I don’t know. I woke up and I couldn’t walk.”

“You scared me.” I cup her head in my hands and she looks like a nun in a wimple.

She licks her chops for any remaining flavor from the pill pocket. “I know you put medicine in those things.”

“I know you know.” Then I add, “The medicine will help you heal.”

Lily considers this. “Can I have my red ball?”

I gently lift her up and study her Frankenstein scar. It’s like she’s now assembled from two different dogs: the puppy who will always want to play, and the senior dog who must come to understand her limits. I make her a promise: “Soon.”

I place Lily gently on a layer of towels in our bed, nestled safely between Jeffrey and me, and the pain pill and the toll of the day knock her out within minutes. Sleep comes fast for me, as well. It’s almost impossible to believe that when I woke up this morning I was in San Francisco.

I dream of the beach where Lily would run off-season when she was a puppy. In my dream she runs and runs, not getting anywhere fast. There are other dogs, bigger dogs, and she wants to run near them but not with them; she’s slightly intimidated by their size and the sand they kick up with their paws. Her whole body is a compression spring that launches her with each step into momentary levitation. Her floppy ears bound upward with each gallop, sometimes floating there in the wind as if someone has put them on pause. When she comes back to me I know they will be flipped backward, pinned to her head and the back of her neck. I spend half my life restoring that dog’s ears to their factory setting.

THE! SAND! IS! SO! SQUISHY! UNDER! MY! PAWS! AND! LOOK! HOW! VAST! THE! OCEAN! WATCH! ME! RUN! WITHOUT! MY! LEA—

Before she can say leash, a wave sweeps in and engulfs her delicate paws in a strand of slick seaweed and a look of terror washes over her face.

SERPENT! SERPENT! SERPENT!

She turns and hightails it to drier sand, closer to the dunes where the last of the tall grass waves. Immediately, her nose picks up the scent of a dead crab. She rips off a leg and runs with it in her mouth off into the distance until she is no more than a speck on the horizon.

In the morning, Jeffrey and I dress quickly and immediately take Lily outside. We set her on the grass and again she is able to stand. She even attempts an excited step or two, looking not unlike Bambi but with shorter legs, before I can calm her to keep her from overexerting herself. “Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.”

Jeffrey looks to intervene but I shrug him off. This is my job. This is my moment. I will not be a coward, I will not be afraid. I will not be someone who can love only so much. I will not be someone who is not whole or fully present when things get tough. I will not let others do the heavy lifting for me. I will not be distracted by a text message. Wringing the piss out of this dog I love—this is my Everest. This is on me.