Lily and the Octopus(52)

The idea of it, of going home, piques Lily’s interest. Even if she’s not confident of it happening, even if it’s only a game. “I’d like to have peanut butter in my Kong, I want to sniff around the backyard, and fall asleep in your lap when it’s still.” The rocking of the boat has been getting the better of us both.

“Good choices!” I say enthusiastically. A cool breeze sweeps across the deck of the boat, causing an eerie, almost haunted whistle.

“And I’d like a large bowl of chicken and rice, even though I’m not sick.”

“Seasick, maybe,” I say.

“Sick of the sea,” she replies.

I nod. She means the chicken and rice I always make for her when her stomach is upset. I don’t know why I don’t make the effort more often, since she clearly loves it. I can’t really make it for her here. We don’t have any chicken.

Suddenly the stars appear, brilliant and sparkling, in all their majestic glory.

“Can I tell you something else?”

“Always,” she says.

Immediately I say, “Never mind.”

“No. What?”

I should never have said anything. I think about how what I was going to say would sound to Lily, about how it suggests a future without her, at the very least a future where it is no longer just the two of us. But I’ve opened my stupid mouth and I can’t think of a plausible lie, so I feel compelled to finish my thought. “I’d like to fall in love again.”

In the silence that follows, all you can hear is the rhythmic hum of Fishful Thinking’s engine. We’re so far from shore there’s not even the caw of a passing gull. I know this makes Lily jealous. The idea of my falling in love. She doesn’t like to share my affection with anyone. I never explicitly told her that dogs don’t live as long as people. I wonder, from her time with the octopus, how much she knows. I wonder if in the last few weeks she’s contemplated mortality like I have.

“You will,” she says. Then, almost as an afterthought, “I promise.”

A shooting star zips through the sky and I point and yell, “Look!” but Lily doesn’t turn fast enough to see it.





Scar Light, Scar Bright, First Scar I See Tonight


The light of a full moon streams through the opening at the top of the stairs, casting a bluish pall belowdecks. Maybe pall is too strong a word. Maybe it’s the scotch and not the moon coloring my mood. Even so, I pour myself another two fingers. I should ration it more carefully, but right now it’s a smoky salve I crave.

I undress Lily for bed, which means unsnapping the life jacket I’ve insisted she wear at all times since I first sensed the octopus nearby. She looks up at me as I do this, with an inquisitive expression.

“What?” I ask her.

“There’s a patch, just under your chin, where your beard doesn’t grow.”

I feel under my chin. The coarse hairs are getting almost unruly and I separate them with my fingers, finding just the spot Lily mentions. I can feel smooth skin.

“Oh, that. That’s a scar.”

Lily is only momentarily satisfied with my answer. “What’s a scar?”

“It’s the spot that’s left behind after the healing of a cut or a burn or a wound.”

Lily considers this. “How did you get it?”

“When I was five I pushed my sister, Meredith, into the coffee table and she split open her chin. It was mean and careless and a dumb thing for me to do. I don’t even remember why I did it, except I used to do a lot of things to Meredith because she was close to me in age, and often simply there. One time, I shoved a pink crayon up her nose and snapped it off. A doctor had to remove it with tiny forceps. Another time, I convinced her to rub an entire jar of Vaseline through her hair. She had to have a drastic haircut after that.”

“None of that explains really how you got the scar on your chin.”

I think about the point I am trying to make. “The best answer I can give you is that karma can be a bitch.”

“What’s karma?” Lily wants to know.

“Karma is the belief that a person’s actions in the present decide their fate in the future. A week after I pushed Meredith into the coffee table, I fell in the bathtub and split my own chin open. And that’s how I got this scar.”

Lily mulls this over before saying, “I have a sister named Meredith.”

“No,” I correct. “I have a sister named Meredith. You have sisters named Kelly and Rita.”

“And my mother’s name is Witchie-Poo!”

“That’s right.” I take the Witchie-Poo talisman out of my pocket and place it over our bed. Lily hops up on the mattress and sniffs it.

“I have a scar,” Lily says, turning around on the bed so that I can see the length of her back. She looks back at me with doleful eyes.

“Yes, you do. From surgery when you ruptured two discs in your back. You gave me quite a scare.” I often wonder how much she remembers the experience, or if she’s blocked most of it from her mind. I guess if she’s aware of the scar on her back, the events have left her scarred in other, less obvious places.

I take off my pants, fold them, and put them aside. I’ve been wearing the same underwear for three days without taking the time to wash them. “See these here?” I place my bare leg up on the bunk. “These scars in my leg are from my own surgery when a doctor opened my leg to pull out several veins.”