The Pisces(74)

“I want nothing more than to be with you,” I said.

“I’ll hold your hand the whole way.”

“Could you give me a little bit of time before we go? Maybe we can just keep meeting on the rock a little longer?”

“So you aren’t going to come.”

“No, I want to. But I need to straighten out some things for my sister first. I just need a little time.”

“How long?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just a few days. Until Thursday maybe?”

He was silent. I kissed him on the forehead.

“You can’t tell anyone you’re going,” he said, pulling away from me. “They will think you’re crazy and lock you up.”

“I know. I won’t tell them anything,” I said.

“Good,” he said.



“In the meantime, how about you come stay at the house with me for a little while? As I’m preparing. The dog is asleep. I’ve been making him sleep every day now just in case you were here so I could bring you home with me.”

“No,” he said. “I’m finished with the land.”

“Oh,” I said.

“This is as far as I can go. I hope you understand why.”

I didn’t want to understand, but I did. He had sacrificed for me. The thought of him dragging himself back across the beach that night, the danger he put himself in, was scary. Now he wanted me to sacrifice for him. But hadn’t I done that? What had this whole week been?

“I’ll meet you here each night until Thursday,” he said. “And you can tell me whether you are still coming.”

He looked different to me now, more bloated in the face and jaded. His eyes looked darker. I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that he needed me as much as I needed him. It scared me to be needed.

“I’m coming,” I said.

“Good.”

We brought our faces together and kissed gently on the mouth. He put one of his hands at the base of my neck, under my chin, and tightened it—not enough to cut off my air supply, but just so I could feel him pressing a bit into my larynx. My throat felt full of pleasure and emotion. I opened my mouth wider on his and made an “ohhh” sound. We kissed wetly.

“I wish we could live the rest of our lives on these rocks,” I said. “Why isn’t it possible to just live at the edge of both, the ocean and the land?”

Of course I knew why. The edge was an uncomfortable and dangerous place for both of us. The rocks were nowhere to live. I had wanted him to come to my world for that same reason.

“One day these rocks won’t be here,” he said. “The ocean will waste them away.”

“Then we could find new rocks,” I said.



“Eventually you have to choose,” he said. “That’s how the story has always been and that’s the way it will be forever.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, thinking, “I guess because the choice is always there.”





54.


When I got back to the house, Dominic didn’t bark. This was odd, because he always smelled Theo on me. I went into the pantry to check on him. He was lying there on his side, perfectly still.

“Dominic,” I said. “Domi.”

Then I saw his face. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth. His eyes were open, hazy, as though they were made of plastic. He looked like a grotesque stuffed-animal version of himself. The floor was covered in vomit and drool.

“Oh no,” I said out loud. “Please, no.”

He was motionless. I didn’t even have to touch him. I didn’t have to feel his flank or check for breath to know he was dead.

The whole summer came flashing in front of me: each of the men and behind them sweet Dominic, waiting for me in the background the whole time. What had I done? I had poisoned him. I’d been dosing him heavier and heavier, because he seemed to be getting more resistant.

“Please come back. Please,” I begged, kneeling beside him.

His eye seemed to be looking at me, or through me into space. His ear was flapped up over his head and I adjusted it so it faced downward again. It felt cold when I touched it, and detached from anything living, like a piece of loose suede. I began to cry. I thought of how he didn’t like being stroked on his ear, but he always let me. The rest of his body was cold too, heavy like stone.

I shook him a little. Where was he? How was his body here but he was just gone? Everything about him had been warmth, softness, the most gentle parts of life. But now he was the opposite: rigid and empty.



“I never wanted you to suffer,” I said. “I only wanted you to be comfortable. I didn’t want you to be scared of Theo.”

But a quiet voice inside me said, No, that isn’t the truth.

The truth was I’d wanted him out of the way so I could wander the labyrinth of my fantasy life. I had been given pure love in the form of this dog and I had destroyed him.

I sat there and waited. I waited as I had waited for Theo, because I didn’t know what else to do. And sitting on that floor, the truth was further revealed to me that I was not capable of love for anyone. I’d always imagined that there was a subjective reality. But there was nothing subjective about this. I was objectively selfish and cruel. Suddenly it occurred to me that there really were gods who could smite us. The gods were just nature itself. If you didn’t follow the gods, you blew it. I had gone against nature. I had done it all wrong.