Lily and the Octopus(33)

Wednesday Night


I wake to find the bed shaking and immediately think it’s an earthquake. We haven’t had one, a memorable one, for years, and in the back of my mind I’ve been preparing.

Expecting.

Waiting.

I prop myself up on my elbows and stare into the darkness. Something’s different; something’s not right. There’s not the usual rolling sensation of surfing tectonic waves. My stomach isn’t sinking in the way it does when you reach the top of a roller coaster, in the split seconds before the first drop. There isn’t the usual calmness that overtakes me, the antithesis of how you think you’d react in an earthquake—the ability to think where flashlight batteries are, to count the ounces of bottled drinking water in the house, to remember how a transistor radio works, to wonder if you’re wearing something acceptably dignified for when your body is found.

I place my hand on Lily and the source of this seismic activity becomes clear—she is in the throes of another seizure. I roll onto my side and pull her tightly to my chest. My lips are right behind her ear, behind the octopus, and I whisper angrily, “Let go of her. Let go of her. Let go!” And then to Lily, “I’ve got you. I’m here. Shhh.”

My mind drifts and I think of us in a tented war hospital, somewhere not far from the battlefield. The air is hot and thick, and Lily, the wounded veteran, is shaking in a morphine haze, deep in jarring flashbacks of the horrific events of war. I am the loving nurse trying to calm the soldier, telling her to ignore the blasts of distant shells, ignore the moans of her fellow wounded, ignore the stench of charred flesh and destroyed lives, ignore the cawing of spiteful magpies singing gleefully of impending death, all while calmly wiping her forehead.

Lily continues to convulse with her eyes rolled back and my terror metastasizes into helplessness, paralysis, as I wait for the convulsions to stop. I hold my hand under her chin to keep her from thrashing her neck. It occurs to me that she may bite, involuntarily or out of fear, but I don’t care. Let her bite me. I would welcome the pain. I would rather something awake me from my utter uselessness. My tears start as I begin to feel like the octopus is squeezing my own head, his eight arms suctioned to my skin, compressing like the vise of my panic attacks. I almost remove my hand from under Lily’s jaw to see if the octopus has not in fact jumped from her head to mine. Almost. Because I know he hasn’t. I can see him still, his tentacles gripped firmly around her.

As the shaking slows, I’m aware of a growing warmness underneath me. A wetness that spreads like a drop of food coloring in water. The warmth quickly cools. Lily has wet the bed and her urine seeps across the sheets. I don’t try to remove either of us from the puddle until the seizure fully subsides, and even then, we lie there unwavering as my alarm clock ticks off several more minutes.

I think of all the nights when Lily failed to pee on our bedtime walks. How much stress this would cause me. How difficult it was on those nights to fall asleep, to stay asleep, frustrated that I might have to take her to the yard in the darkness of predawn. So many arguments this caused between us. I always thought I knew better when it came to her needing to pee, but until this night she had never once actually wet the bed. And now that she has, we just lie there in the accident and the minutes on the clock keep changing and the love I have for her keeps growing and we both keep drawing breath.

What was so horrible about it?

Why had I always been so angry?

What was with my need to be right? To win every argument with her? To outstubborn a dog?

And just like that, all of the anger is gone. Released, like the emptying of a bladder, into soft cotton sheets as we lie in the wetness.

Lily tries to regulate her breathing, but it quickly turns to panting.

“Do you want water? You can drink mine.” I indicate the glass of water I always keep on the nightstand.

Lily shakes her head no.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “For all those other nights.”

“Wh-y-y-y-y?” The panting continues.

And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.

She wants to know why I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell her about my anger. I don’t want to tarnish my image in her eyes. Not now. Not with the octopus listening.

So when I respond, I lie.

“Because I’m going to have to give you a bath.”





A Complete List of Lily’s Nicknames


Silly Little Lil

Monkey Bunny Bunny Rabbit Mouse Tiny Mouse Goose Silly Goose Mongoose Monster Monster Dot Com Peanut Penuche Pinochle Sweet Pea Walnut Walnut Brain Copperbottom Crazy Baby

Puppy Guppy Old Lady Crank Cranky Crankypants Squeaky Squeaky Fromme Tiger Dingbat Mush

Mushyface Hipster Slinkster Slinky Bean

Dog





Saturday


The sun rises with a surprising intensity, a sign that June gloom has cleared the runway and July is on approach. We’re both tired, and it would’ve been easy to return to the bed after our morning walk, read from a book maybe, drift lazily in and out of sleep. But the sun beckons with a blazingly confrontational message: There is darkness, but there is also light. To stay in bed would be to embrace the darkness, the seizures, the octopus. To go outside is to embrace the light.