Chapter Four
O n Sunday, I work my usual shift at Loden and Linden, peddling scratchy but aesthetically pleasing, naturally dyed, hand-woven flax blankets and organic candles with names like Summer Kisses and First Blush, which have always struck me as suspect because I’m dead certain none of my kisses or blushes have had a distinct scent.
When I check in at the end of the day, Dr. Kong says the dog is stable, but still running a temperature and nonresponsive.
Monday through Thursday, I attend the anatomy and physiology, immunology, and pathology classes I’m barely keeping up with, grateful we’re not working with cadavers this week because I’m not sure I could hold myself together. I also work my shifts at the pizzeria.
Every evening, I check in.
Every evening, Dr. Kong updates me, though any changes are minor.
Every evening, I force myself to stop picturing the dog bed and the dishes.
I have to quit thinking of this dog as mine.
Her poor body has a lot to contend with, as do her mind and her spirit.
Stressing about her health won’t help her.
My energy would be better spent preparing for what’s feeling more and more inevitable as her health fails to improve.
Friday morning, when I find myself seriously considering if the nutritional contents of four leftover take-out packets of ketchup and six remaining saltines in an otherwise empty box will get me through to lunch, I make a quick run to the grocery store, returning with a discount loaf of almost-stale bread, a few packets of bland but unobjectionable ramen, and a jar of off-brand peanut butter, desperate to save every penny until I know what’s happening with the dog.
As I step into the elevator from the lobby, a soft voice calls for me to hold the doors.
I reach out to halt their closing, and see Dog Lady speed-walking toward me.
She’s a short, stout Asian woman with a tidy blunt bob, currently sporting cropped linen pants and sandals that look more suitable for summer, which she seems to be making up for with a heavy knit top, a bulky cardigan, a long, tailored jacket, and two cotton print scarves loosely twisted together and looped around her neck.
Her Yorkie-poo, Pilot, is poking her tiny tufted head out from a padded shoulder bag while Dog Lady’s hands are filled with mesh totes of vibrant produce that makes me glad my dismal, vitamin-deficient groceries are well hidden within canvas.
“Thank you,” Dog Lady says as she joins me, a little breathless.
“You’re welcome,” I reply.
We exchange a brief smile. Then we do what we usually do: settle into position facing the doors with a polite amount of space between us, going quiet as the doors close.
However, I can’t help glancing over at Pilot, who’s watching me with her tiny black eyes alert and her tiny pink tongue hanging out.
She’s so cute, and so quiet, and she always seems so happy, tucked in her quilted bag.
Next thing I know, I’m thinking about a golden retriever left outside and alone on concrete, and a lump is rising in my throat, and if I don’t say something soon. ..
“How did you pick her name?” I ask, clearing my throat when the words come out raspy.
“Oh!” Dog Lady turns to look at me, her face awash with surprise. “You mean Pilot?”
“Yeah. It’s sweet,” I say. “Kinda different. Do you fly planes?”
Dog Lady laughs as she gazes affectionately at the tiny, happy face by her shoulder.
“I’m an English professor,” she says. “With a focus on nineteenth-century women’s literature. Pilot’s the name of Mr. Rochester’s dog in Jane Eyre . It’s always been a favorite.”
“You’re a professor?” I can’t help asking, because really? Living here ?
“Adjunct,” she says with another laugh. “Like everyone else these days.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just smile again, though I suspect it comes out forced. It’s depressing enough to live here as a student. As a professor? I can’t even imagine.
When we reach the sixth floor and head in the same direction off the elevator, grappling with our bags and keys, it suddenly feels silly that I’m still thinking of her as Dog Lady.
“I’m Cameron, by the way,” I tell her. “Grad student in Cornell’s veterinary program.”
Another flash of surprise crosses her face, followed swiftly by a warm smile.
“Minh Ha,” she says. “Unless you take one of my classes. Then I’m Professor Huynh.”
“I can’t really see myself studying literature.”
“Well, you never know. But it’s nice to meet you, Cameron.”
“You too,” I say, and hope she knows I mean it, even if my introduction is long overdue.
A FTER brEAKFAST, I manage to pay attention in my morning classes, but later that afternoon, when I’m on my way to my usual shift at the pizzeria, I get the call I’m dreading.
We don’t think she has long. If you want to say goodbye ...
Doesn’t matter that I’ve been half expecting it. It’s still a battering ram to the heart.
I step into the nearest alcove, take a minute to collect myself, and call my boss to let her know I have a personal emergency.
She’s flexible about schedules in general—the biggest perk of an otherwise uninspiring and far from lucrative job—but she’s angry about the last-minute notice, especially on a Friday night, and I’m forced to endure a scolding, one that ends with an order to “make sure this doesn’t become a habit.
” It’s literally the first time I’ve called in like this, but I keep the comment to myself, anxious to get off the phone and get going.
My next call is to Everett, who I exchanged numbers with on Saturday and have been updating daily, often after he sends a sweet, heart-pinching text like How’s our girl?
CAMERON: They think this is it. I need to get there stat. Any chance you’re free?
Everett doesn’t answer and the ellipses don’t appear. It’s almost 7p.m. He said he often works late. He could also be out with friends or on a date, a thought that grates more than I’d like, especially since I have way more important things to focus on right now.
I check the bus schedule but it’ll be ages before I get to Syracuse, so I go ahead and book an Uber, wincing at the cost, though if there was ever a time to splurge...
Within ten minutes, I’m in the back seat of a tidy Prius while Jared, my driver, bobs his head to the base-heavy music he dropped to a low volume for me. I like base-heavy music, but not when it feels like the soundtrack to my anxiety, thumping along to my too-fast heartbeat.
I picture her little face. Her cute black nose. Her sad eyes. Her twitching brows.
Hold on , I think. Please, hold on. We can do this. Give me a chance to love you.
When I’m halfway to Syracuse, Everett calls.
“Sorry, sorry,” he gusts out as if winded. “I was in a meeting. Am still in a meeting. On a break. West Coast client. Time difference. Where are you? How are you? How is she? Do you need my car? If you can come to my office, I’ll give you my keys.”
He sounds as stressed as I am, which I have conflicted feelings about.
“I got an Uber,” I tell him. “I don’t know how long—”
“I’ll drive up as soon as my meeting lets out,” he interjects.
“You sure?” I ask. “You might not even get to see her. You know. Depending.”
He doesn’t answer right away but I can hear him breathing as he mentally fills in the spaces we keep leaving in the conversation.
“I’m glad she won’t be alone,” he says. “But you don’t need to be alone, either.”
My throat gets thick and I struggle to swallow before speaking.
“Okay. Thank you,” I say. “If I leave the vet’s, I’ll text you where to find me.”
We say goodbye and hang up. After a second or two, Jared reaches around to hold out a travel-pack of tissues. I take a few and thank him, and because he doesn’t follow up the gesture by asking me to give him a five-star rating, I tap it into my phone as soon as I exit the car.
T HE DOG IS being kept comfortable—or as comfortable as possible—on a large mat covered with a fuzzy blanket on the floor of a consultation room.
One of her front legs is shaved where she’s had an IV, though she’s not currently hooked up to anything.
She’s lying on her side this time, with all four legs stretched out and her eyes closed.
Even with her sores, her weight, and her hairless tail, she’s absolutely perfect.
Because she’s a dog, and all dogs are perfect.
A vet tech in lavender scrubs is sitting by her head, stroking her ears.
She says they’ve been taking turns, keeping the dog company and monitoring her vitals while encouraging her to hold on until I arrive.
Everyone here is an animal person. I don’t need to explain why I’m so attached to this dog after briefly meeting her in a shelter a week ago. They all get it.
“I’ll give you some time alone,” the tech says. “Be back to check on you in ten?”
I nod, because it’s all I can manage. Then I take her place on the floor and she heads out, shutting the door behind her with the softest, gentlest click as the latch catches. It’s so quiet, but my nerves are so taut, it might as well be a thunderous gong, ringing out from a mountaintop.
“Hi, girl.” I run a hand over the dog’s ear and down the back of her sweet, soft, perfect head.
“You’re not having a very good day, are you?
” I lean a little closer, bury my fingers in the thicker hair at the back of her neck.
She’s not wearing a collar of any kind. I wonder if she ever had one.
If someone, early on, before they decided this was acceptable pet-parenting, picked out a color, and the shape of a little metal name tag, and got her name engraved.
“Millie? Harley? Honey? Bailey?” I give each name a moment to settle before I try the next. “Cocoa? Kiki?”
She doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t whimper or snort. She just breathes, and I can only hope the sound of my voice and the feel of my hand in her fur are a comfort to her.
I don’t really know what to say. One of the things I’ve always loved about animals is that they don’t expect you to say anything at all.
There are no awkward elevator silences. There are no awkward anything silences, but all I have right now is my voice and my touch, and after a lifetime of being given so little of what she needs, this dog deserves everything I’ve got.
I pull my phone from my pocket, and while I pet her with one hand, I scroll a baby name site with the other, reading through names from A to Z .
The vet tech checks on me somewhere around F .
I tell her we’re doing okay, which is a pretty big stretch, but code we both understand.
She assures me the room is ours as long as we need it, so I let her know I’ll pop my head out and call for someone if anything changes.
Otherwise, I’ll hang out here for a while, which I do.
For the next hour or so, I read names, ask the dog what she thinks, and will her to live.
“Zelda? Zoey? Zora?” I try as I get to the end of the list.
No response, other than shallow but even breathing.
I turn off my screen and rest my phone in my lap, squeezing my eyes shut and letting a quiet whisper of a curse slip through my teeth. I’m thinking about slashing tires again, and this is not the moment to give in to my murderous rage. I can return to it later.
“Maybe I’m going about this all wrong.” I open my eyes and look down at the dog, still petting her head, her ear, her neck.
“We shouldn’t pick your name off a list. We should make it special.
Lady Marmalade was named after my favorite song at the time.
I used to holler my way through it, missing every note.
My poor parents.” I smile a little, but only a little.
“We could pick a song for you. Or a musician, or a character from a book, like Pilot from Jane Eyre , or even an author, though I’m not much of a reader these days unless it’s an anatomy textbook.
As a kid, though, I used to pore through books.
I remember checking Agatha Christie mysteries out of the library five at a time because that was the limit for kids under sixteen. I loved the—”
I stop short, my rambling halted by the gentle nudge of a nose against my thigh.
And then she opens her eyes.
She opens. Her eyes.
At first, she stares straight ahead, like she did at the shelter, unfocused, but after a few seconds, her eyes shift until she’s blinking up at me.
Her head is still resting on the blanket, her body otherwise unmoving, but she’s definitely looking at me, with her tufty brows twitching and more life in her eyes than I saw last weekend.
They’re a warm, dark brown, almost black, each with a pair of highlights from the overhead fluorescents and a tiny crescent of white at the base.
“Hi,” I say, a barely there breath of a word, and again, “Hi.”
She blinks, and her nose inches forward to tap my thigh again.
A rush of emotion races through me, though I’m not sure which emotion. Relief, or maybe fear, because it’s only a nudge. It could be a goodbye, but also... it’s a nudge.
I scoot closer so I can lift her head onto my lap. There’s hair everywhere at this point from all the petting so I pluck away a few strands that are stuck to her nose. Her wet nose. Her no longer hot and dry nose. Her nose that twitches as I clear it of hair.
A nudge and a twitch. And open, curious eyes.
My hope surges.
I stay with her, rambling nonsense for several more minutes with her head on my lap as she adds a twitch of a paw to her repertoire, and then another, and then a faint but happy groan when I rub the inside of her ear with my knuckle.
After several more minutes, when I find myself laughing through tears at some random observation I make about how it’s too bad neither of us can reach the treat jar sitting on the counter on the opposite side of the room, tucked among examination equipment, I hear the quiet thump of a tail hitting the mat.
This is how Everett finds me as he’s ushered into the room with another vet tech: cry-laughing with a dog whose tail thumps for a second time when he kneels and asks how we are.
“I think she might pull through,” I say.
His eyes sparkle behind his glasses as he pulls down the sleeve of another beautiful sweater he probably inherited from one of his sisters, and uses it to dab at my eyes.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah. And she has a name. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will. I hope she will.” I bend down to kiss the top of her head and then whisper near her ear, “Hold on, Aggie. Hold on and come home and have the life you should’ve had all along.”