But it isn’t a gun. Nor is it a box of memories. It’s worse.
As my dead wife’s mother turns toward the house, I see she is straining to carry the sixty-five pounds of labrador I had left in the vet’s care. Bandages encircle the head, the ribs, and a nub where a hind leg used to be. A pained determination is etched on her face as she struggles up the walkway on sensible heels, and even I cannot deny entry to one so burdened.
I open the door and step out intending to take the wounded creature from her, but my feet--informed by some superstition buried deep in my reptilian brain--refuse. She and the dog close the distance between us, passing into a cloud of glittering…No, that’s not right. I close my eyes and the sparks remain.
Breathe for Christ’s sake. Don’t you dare keel over.
Slow, measured, in...out. My arms reach for the thing, apparently slave to some more advanced neural network than my feet. It is trembling. Or I am.
Maybe we both are.
I turn, follow Aurelia into the house, and she closes the door behind me. Somehow I make it into the recliner, still gripping the dog I’d never wanted to see again. Now it is my shield, heavy on my lap and solid before my chest.
“You look like shit.”
I don’t reply. Whatever she needs to say to me, I deserve. I won’t fight it. All the fight I once had was wasted on some principle or point of pride I can’t even comprehend anymore.
So…I was visiting Mom and Dad today and they mentioned there’s a place for sale just outside their neighborhood. It’s very reasonable for the location. The owner was just moved into hospice and his children are looking for a quick sale to help with--
What? It’s not enough to spend more on a fancy house number than my parents ever made in their lives? You want to rip off the dying elderly too?
You know that’s not fair. I only mentioned the price because it upsets you to think about spending so much, but you have got to understand. Look at this place, this neighborhood. It’s not safe. Even the schools are a war zone. How could we ever start a family here?
I was raised here.
But we could give our kids better than--
Fuck you! Just because there’s no country club doesn’t mean it’s not good enough for my own kids. If we ever have any, they’re gonna know where they came from.
The dog whimpers and shifts, drawing me from my reverie. The room is empty and for a moment I wonder if I went to get the dog after all. Was Aurelia just a hallucination? Then I hear the clatter of pans coming from the kitchen. Water runs. The refrigerator and cabinet doors open and close.
The dog and I sit.
And wait.
When Aurelia emerges from the kitchen she has two plates and I hope they’re for her and the dog.
“For God’s sake are you just gonna sit there forever holding that thing? Put him down. He needs to eat and so do you.”
I comply amidst her admonitions to be gentle with the invalid. He begins to munch with little enthusiasm at the plate of chopped sirloin tossed in egg I see she’s prepared him. Now I know where my wife got the dog-spoiling gene from. Sirloin. Christ. When I was growing up my dad never had sirloin let alone our dog. She hands the other plate to me and I see my sirloin is not chopped but grilled whole; my eggs are plentiful and sunny side up. Toast is light. Sausage seared.
I’ll never be able to swallow any of it past the lump rising in my throat at the realization that she knew how I liked my breakfast done. All those times I imagined her talking shit to her daughter about what a loser I was. And really she’d been listening carefully enough to know this. And this mundanity of life, this minor yet enormous thing that my wife had taken such joy in: preparing me breakfast the way I liked it, this was what she was sharing with her mother.
No more cowardly way. I won’t need a trip to the ATM. I won’t be heading back to that filthy hovel to take my life slowly. No more excuses to wallow in the oblivion a fix brings. I don’t deserve it and there are plenty of cheaper, faster ways to end this pitiful excuse for a life.
Once Aurelia is long gone. I’ll text her right before. That way I’m motivated to do it right and fast, and the dog won’t suffer without care.
“Thank you, Aurelia.”
She ‘humpfs’ over the edge of a wine glass from her perch on the sofa. I begin to pick at the food.
Waiting.
It doesn’t take long.
“My daughter saw something in you. I won’t pretend I see it too, because I don’t. And it isn’t just grief clouding my senses.” She sips, perhaps to loosen her tongue. “But you like it or not, you’re mine now and you’re done at that goddamn flophouse and you’re done wasting and destroying whatever the hell that hidden thing was. That very well-hidden thing.” Her face said she still doubted its existence. I couldn’t blame her.
So did I.
“How did you know?” I’m ashamed. Confused. A little pissed.
“I’ve been having you followed since you left the cemetery.” She sips again and waves a dismissive hand at the flare of anger crossing my face. “Settle the hell down. What’s a little private investigation among family? Especially when dead daughters are in the mix.”
This last is spoken with such prohibitive ice I recoil. It belies the calm demeanor she’s had on display, and I catch a terrifying glimpse of the woman I first thought had arrived an hour ago. The one who would have had a gun and would have put me out of my misery.
“I don’t understand.” I’ve stopped eating and briefly consider passing the leftovers to the dog, but he hasn’t even finished his own.
Her eyes are hard but her voice is deliberately soft. “Don’t you? You, who embraces every ugly thing to glance your way? We’re not so different you know. It’s just that I’ve learned to hold on to the beautiful things too.”
I can’t face her. My stinging eyes search out the dog.
Do you know how much a security system costs? Wait, of course you do. Forget it!
His face is turned up to mine and I return his sorrow-filled gaze.
You... you bought me a dog?
You wanted a burglar alarm. Now you’ve got one. Any beer in the fridge or is that too much to hope for?
He drops his eyes and his head. Another whimper. Furry lids squeeze shut against our common reality.
“I don’t know where you were at eleven o’clock at night when my daughter took that dog into these streets and met her end at the hands of some far more powerful animal. I don’t want to know. It’s enough to see how you hate yourself for it.”
Hey sweets, it’s me. I was kind of thinking you’d be home by now. Just thought I’d give you a call while I walked Bruno, but...well...okay, I’ll just see you when you get home. Love you.
The dog can’t look me in the eye. I wonder whether he’s more ashamed of his broken body or his breaking my promise. I want to tell him it isn’t his fault, that I should never have claimed he could keep her safe. That the broken promise was mine even if I used him in the making of it.
“But this bullshit where you drown in self-pity and self-loathing is done. You owe her better than that. You owe me better than that. And you owe Bruno, who almost lost his life being where you should have been, better than that.”
Why is she here? Why can’t she leave me to die in peace? The dog creeps toward my feet, belly on floor: meek, supplicant, and I slide from the chair to meet him.
“You think I don’t know. That because I have what I have I can’t understand you, but I do. I understand the kind of poison that makes you hate the things that love you most. And I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to stay that way. You already let that anger rob me and you and this world of a beautiful soul. Don’t let it kill whatever she saw in you too.”
The wounded beast gently presses his nose to my knee and I’m lost. My face sinks to the carpet beside his and I howl with anguish like a child who believes someone might care he is hurting.
And the miracle is, someone does.
The last person who should, wraps her arms around me. Rocks me as Bruno nuzzles me. Those I have failed more thoroughly than anyone left living, minister to me with tenderness and generosity I have known--but never appreciated--before.
When I’ve exhausted the limits of even my expressions of grief, I sit back, too spent even to be embarrassed. Aurelia pins me with her honey-ringed eyes.
“This is it. Rock bottom. There’s only two ways to go from here. Back to your flophouse suicide, or up.”
I consider her words. Consider what I’ve lost, what I’ve cost this woman and--yes--Bruno. My decision is made. What Aurelia did...in my entire life I will never be able to offer half the love this woman showed in a single afternoon. What good have I ever been?
I stand, checking my back pocket for the ATM card. Still there. I can get all the money I need to take care of business. Aurelia has done enough for me. It’s time I removed the burden from her hands.
As much as I appreciate Bruno’s sacrifice, he can’t eat sirloin for every meal, and the pet store closes in an hour.
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