Lily and the Octopus(63)

Still.





Noon


We enter the animal hospital through the sliding doors and it’s the same as I remember and the woman behind the desk asks if she can help us (she doesn’t ask if we can hold) and I stammer, “I called earlier,” and she nods and flags down a passing coworker by putting her hands on her shoulders.

She whispers to her friend.

The second woman ushers us into an examining room and tells us the doctor will be in shortly. When she leaves she closes the door behind us, sealing us in.

I sit with Lily on the only chair. It’s cold.

The clock on the wall has no second hand and I look at it for what feels like three minutes before I see the minute hand move once.

It’s quiet. Not much is going on in the middle of a Thursday.

Thursday is the day that my dog Lily and I set aside to talk about boys we think are cute.

“It’s Thursday, Bean. On Thursdays we talk about boys.”

Lily does the thing where she lifts an eyebrow, but otherwise remains perfectly still.

“How about we go old school: young Paul Newman, or young Paul McCartney?”

Lily sighs.

Q: What sound or noise do you love?

A: Puppies sighing.





My voice cracks.

“I gotta tell you.” I tip my head back to keep my tears from falling on Lily. “I don’t think there was anyone more handsome than a young Paul Newman.”

Footsteps outside the door. Please don’t come in. Please go away and leave us be. Please go away forever.

They pass.

“Butch Cassidy. Cool Hand Luke. Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

The clock ticks off another minute. And then several more.

I want to run, but my feet are encased in cement, glued to the floor, the lower half of my body paralyzed, like Lily’s was when last we sat in this hospital.

More footsteps. They come to a halt.

A hand on the doorknob.

The opening door.

A woman in a white lab coat enters. She smiles warmly, but not too warmly. She already knows what’s happening.

“Who do we have here?” she asks.

I pinch my finger until it hurts. “This is Lily.”

The woman produces a stool from underneath the examining table, wheels it beside us, and takes a seat.

“What’s this on Lily’s head?” She places three fingers under Lily’s chin and raises her head very gently to get a better look.

“That’s the octo—” I start to say, but stop. Enough is enough. “That’s her tumor.”

The veterinarian takes a pocket light and shines it in Lily’s eyes. There is no real response.

“Is she blind?”

“Yes. The tumor has taken her eyesight. And just about everything else.”

She runs her other hand gently over the mass and slowly lets Lily’s head rest again in my lap.

“She has seizures. Bad seizures. And I think dementia. And this morning she looked at me like she was . . . done.” This is the last I can say before I have to fight to speak, to do battle for each individual word. “I want you to take her. I want you to take her and to fix her. I want you to tell me you can make everything okay. To make this all go away. And, short of that, if you can’t do that, if you can’t produce a miracle, I want you to tell me I’m making the right decision.”

There’s a panic attack looming. I can feel it. The right decision. The wrong decision. The happy memories. The sad reality. Good. Bad. Up. Down. Win. Lose. Life. Death.

The doctor holds Lily’s head in her hands and covers her ears.

“You’re making the compassionate decision.”

There will be no miracles.

There will be no tomorrows.

I nod like my head weighs a hundred pounds and make some sort of noise. Pain mixed with acknowledgment mixed with consent.

Again. “It’s the compassionate decision.”

My eyes blur.

I’m underwater.

Fishful Thinking has capsized.

I am drowning.

“How does this work?” I already know that I don’t want the answer.

“I’m going to take Lily and fit her with a small catheter in her leg so we can easily inject the drugs intravenously. There will be two. The first will render her unconscious. She will be asleep, but still alive. You can have a moment with her to say good-bye. And then when you say, we will inject the second drug to cause cardiac arrest. Once we inject that second drug, it should be over within thirty seconds or so.”

“Two drugs,” I say.

The woman reaches for Lily, but I don’t let go.

“Right now we’re just going to find a vein and fit her with a catheter so things will go as smoothly as possible.”

She reaches for Lily again, and this time I loosen my grip. She promises to be back in a few moments.

I’m alone in the room and for the first time I can stand. I walk in three tight circles the way Lily does before lying down. Except I don’t lie down. I pound my thighs with my fists.

I need to feel pain. Physical pain.

I slam my arm against the metal examining table in an effort to break something. The pain splinters up to my shoulder and it feels good. So good I do it again.

But I don’t need to break anything.