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Sparkle (6)
I don’t want to get out of bed. I’m afraid to actually. If I get up, I’ll have to look out the window. Then I’ll know. If my dog is alive or not.
“If she’s dead in the morning,” husband had said, “I’ll put her in the Honda and take her to work. So you all don’t have to-- You know . . .”
The thing is, I never heard a car, mine or his, start and leave. Did I fall back asleep for a minute and miss it? What if he’s down there right now? Trying to get her sixty pounds out the back door without the other dog getting loose? I know I should help. Put my slippers and hoodie on and go downstairs. Instead, I pull his pillow parallel to me and draw it against my hollow parts.
At 7:30 I wake again. Get up, coward! I throw back the flannel sheets and two ton down comforter. Put my feet on the berber. Shiver. Stand. Rearrange my jammie britches. I realize I’m holding my breath when I get to the window. Silver leaf SUV? Gone. I exhale and my lips flap.
Down two flights of stairs. Pause outside the kitchen. Please be alive. And better. Back legs healed. In the name of Jesus. I bend at the waist and peek. The white dog is in a nose-tucked knot by the door. Brown dog’s flopped on her side, the way I left her last night. I smell, then see, the streak of pee on the floor back by her tail.
I approach and crouch. “Hi, baby. How’s my Painty Lou?”
The power tail does not pound per usual. Instead, a long quavery moan starts in her belly, works its way up.
My brow furrows. “I know, sweetie. I know.”
I get a shallow condiment bowl off the dish drainer. Run water in it. Lap, lap, lap. I hold her food dish in front of her nose. She closes her eyes.
“But there’s grated cheese on it. You sure you don’t . . .”
I sigh. Get a rag and soak it with warm water. I pull her away from her accident. Wipe her back end and then the floor. Daisy May, the white dog, does a jig near the door.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Paint. “Let me put Sister out.”
When I return, she’s by the door. Dragged herself there using her front legs.
“You want out too?” I say. “Do you have to do business? Number two?”
I ponder how this will be accomplished. I’ll carry her outside then support her by her rib cage while she-- First things first. I get a plastic table cloth and towel. Arrange them in the back yard, on the area with the most grass, least mud. I slide out the gizmo that holds the screen door open. Then I hoist the girl who weighs almost half of me. Dear Jesus, please protect my back. It’s a difficult burden—half living and active, the rest almost dead-weight. Off the porch, into the grass, onto the makeshift bed.
“Baby, you can lay down now. Relax.”
Instead, she’s caught in a sit pose. Upright only because she landed that way. She seems happy though, to be anything but flat and not likely to go anywhere soon. I take a seat nearby and enjoy her accomplishment with her. But then her front legs, stiff with determination, start to tremble. Aftershocks from Japan maybe? No, fatigue. Her front paws slide across the vinyl. She’s like an ill-fated swing set, anchored in quicksand instead of certainty. I catch her around the chest, ease her to the ground. Glance at my watch—7:51 a.m.. Does the vet open at 8:00 or 8:30?
I consider going as is, soft blue jammies, black hoodie, red Crocs. No. I really should get dressed. Put on a bra and undies at least.
All of a sudden, my chest stutters with a fear breath. The Dobie Brothers and Sergeant Oz, a Pit Bull, live next door. What if they come out to pee and see her? Smell compromised canine? Surely they’ll come over the fence and have at her. Especially Ricco. Even though he squats to pee instead of hiking a leg, I know he’s vicious. His ears, scalpeled and docked into tiny triangles, make him look like a devil dog. I’ve seen him hang onto his red, suspended-from-a-tree rubber donut for five minutes or more, thrashing, attempting to kill what is not
