Lily and the Octopus(62)

I’ve wadded the invoice into a ball in my sweaty hand. It reminds me of a trick my granny taught me when I was a boy that involved crinkling the paper wrapper of a straw, then wetting it with a drop of water and watching it expand and writhe like a worm. I could almost perform the same trick with this scrunched paper and my sweat. Almost.

My granny is gone.

My childhood is gone.

Magic is gone.

I inhale. I exhale. Again.

I make two false attempts at speaking, each time my voice cracking between words.

My words are gone.

I bite my tongue hard and it finally enables me to speak.

“Who do I speak with about youth . . . ?”

Confusion on the other end. “About youth?”

I compress my diaphragm and force the word out. “Euthanasia.”





10 A.M.


The woman on the phone asked when we would be in and all I could manage was “today.” I sit on the floor next to Lily and I transfer her gently into my lap.

“What do you want, Tiny Mouse? If you could have anything.”

Lily does her best to cock one eye, but you can tell that she’s in pain. After a beat she gingerly licks her chops.

“You probably want chicken and rice, don’t you, Bean? Well, chicken and rice is for when you’re sick, and you’re not sick, you’re perfect. You’re just in pain, is all, and the pain is almost over, so you can have whatever you want. Something even better.”

Lily nods, and her chin flops over my knee.

“Anything. You name it.”

There are heavy weights pressing down on my lungs. It’s almost impossible to draw breath. And when I do the oxygen is leaden with a barbed pain.

“I know!” I’m barely holding back tears. “Peanut butter. How about peanut butter?” I vaguely remember aboard Fishful Thinking asking her what she would like first upon returning home. Peanut butter was the answer. “You always liked that best.”

Lily doesn’t protest, so I slowly get up and carry her to the cabinet and I get the peanut butter and this time we sit down at the kitchen table. Carefully, I remove the lid. The jar is almost new, and I hold it under her nose and it takes a long time before she reacts, but then she finally recognizes the sweet scent of peanuts and sugar and oil. Slowly she lifts her head. Slowly she starts licking the air. Slowly I move the jar to her chops so that she makes contact with her prize.

“Take all that you can. You can have the whole jar if you want.”

She makes contact with the peanut butter, but she’s so weak she doesn’t ingest much of it. Essence of peanut butter. I put a little on my finger and let her have that. I remember the feel of her tongue when she was young. Soft and rough all at once. How she would get in these trances licking my hand and how they would go on endlessly until I rebooted her like a computer that had crashed.

Twelve and a half years ago.

Lily finishes the peanut butter on my finger and returns to the jar, where she continues to lap at it until she doesn’t anymore. Then she puts her head down and makes moist smacking sounds, but eventually those stop, too.

“Good girl,” I say.

Jenny and I once talked about how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are all going to die. What’s the point of it all? Why bother getting up in the morning when faced with such futility? Or is it the promise of death that inspires life? That we must grab what we can while there is still time. Is it the not knowing if today is the day that keeps us going?

But what if this is the day? What if the hour is here?

How do you stand?

How do you breathe?

How do you go on?





11 A.M.


I get dressed in clothes that I would normally never wear outside the house, but I don’t care. I wrap Lily in a blanket in case she becomes incontinent again. We stand in the kitchen, and I wonder if she knows this is the last time she’ll see it. If she knows this, if she understands, she doesn’t make a big deal of it. I, on the other hand, can’t help it. This was her home for ten of her twelve-plus years.

There on the floor lies her empty bed. There in the bed is her paw-print blanket. There in front of the sink is the morning sunny patch she likes to lie in. There is the rack where we keep the pots and pans, the one that would swallow red ball, the one I’d find her stuck beneath trying her best to retrieve it, just haunches and a wagging tail. There is the vinyl breakfast booth; an understudy for her bed that was occasionally drafted for afternoon naps. There is the closet door that hides the garbage can, the door she would bat with her paw when she thought I’d been hasty in throwing decent food away. There is the drawer that houses her toys, the one she would give expectant looks to when she wanted to play. There was the pen that confined her for twelve weeks as she slowly recovered from surgery. There is the metal tin that holds her puppy chow and there on the floor is her bowl that twice a day gets filled. There is the back door she would guard with the menacing bark of a German shepherd whenever anyone came near. There is the mixer I used to make the batter that became her home-baked birthday cookies. There is the stove she would hit with a clang after her eyesight was gone. There is the corner she would stand and bark into once dementia had set in.

There is red ball sitting untouched on the floor.

Frozen.

Lifeless.