The Art of Adapting

by Cassandra Dunn

  Mitch looked Lana over. “I think this is the most relaxed I’ve seen you. Want to get a drink or some tea or something?”

  “As nice as that offer sounds,” Lana said, “I’d like to head home to make sure my kids and Matt are okay.” It was the first time she had left them all alone together.

  “Back to caretaker mode,” he teased. “At least I got you off-duty for an hour.”

  “I like taking care of the people I love,” Lana told him, fighting her defensive tone. “I’m not interested in changing that. But I think I’ll join the yoga class. That gets me a regular hour off, right? Provided my house is still standing.”

  The house was fine, the kids were fine, and Matt was fine. It looked like Lana would be getting a regular night to herself each week. And a chance to see Abbot again.

  18

  * * *

  Matt

  The dog, definitely a Vizsla, but the wrong kind of Vizsla, was wiggling like its copper-colored fur was too tight and it needed to escape from it. This dog was nothing like Matt’s beautiful running Vizsla. The color and build were right, although this Vizsla was female, therefore slightly smaller in stature, but everything else about it was wrong.

  “Why does it move so much?” Matt asked. Lana and Mitch were trying to keep the dog between them, but she was determined to escape, even if it meant leaving her skin behind. They took turns holding her collar while she leapt around like the ground was on fire.

  “She’s just excited to see you,” Mitch said.

  Mitch’s friend, the dog’s owner, had gone inside to answer the phone, and this was when the dog had lost its well-trained composure. She was sitting nicely and being rewarded for it with treats until the phone rang. Then the man went inside the house and the dog turned into this unruly jumpy thing that never had all four feet on the ground at once. She kept trying to leap up to Lana’s face, either to lick Lana or break her nose, Matt wasn’t sure which.

  “Bella!” the owner yelled from the back porch, and the jumping dog immediately sat, but her tail was still alive, wagging wildly against the ground and making a hissing noise as it swept back and forth across the tile. She was a hyperactive rattlesnake in Vizsla skin. Matt looked from the tiled area where they stood to an undeveloped field behind the house, and beyond that to a hill with dried grass, rocks, and rodent holes. It was possible there were rattlesnakes out there. Those shady crevices were perfect for snakes.

  Lana and Mitch released Bella’s collar and she kept sitting. The man who owned Bella held his hand out flat, palm down, as he walked toward her. When he was right in front of Bella he tipped his fingertips downward in a quick flick. The dog dropped to her belly, sphinxlike. The man tossed her a treat, but it was too far away for her to reach. Bella stayed put. She pricked up her ears and eyebrows, waiting, looking from the man to the treat. “Okay, take it,” the man said. Bella lunged for the treat, gobbled it down, and came straight for Matt.

  Matt let out a shriek and covered his nose, bracing for the impact. The man yelled, “Sit!” and nothing else happened. When Matt uncovered his face, Bella was sitting in front of him, her entire body rigid with attention, her tail the only thing moving. A rattlesnake poised to strike.

  “Wow,” Matt said. He couldn’t look at the dog. Her amber eyes were fixed on him. She was waiting for something, but he wasn’t sure what. She looked desperate for it, though. “Are there rattlesnakes around here?” He pointed toward the hill, turning his body away from the eager dog and her hungry eyes.

  “I don’t know about here,” the man said. “I do hike her in some areas with rattlesnakes. You can do rattlesnake-avoidance training with dogs, but we haven’t had any run-ins, so I haven’t felt the need.”

  “What’s that?” Lana asked.

  The man explained a procedure where the dog is led right up to a rattlesnake safely enclosed in a glass box, and then is shocked with a shock collar. They keep it up until the dog refuses to go near the snake.

  “Oh, that sounds cruel,” Lana said.

  “Better than getting bit by a rattler,” the man said. “Like I said, I haven’t done it. Vizslas are one of the more responsive breeds. It usually only takes one lesson and they understand.”

  “Do they ever calm down?” Lana asked, stepping between Matt and the dog. Matt backed up until he was a safe distance from Bella.

  “They’re a high-energy breed, for sure. But Bella’s just a year old. She’ll settle down a little as she grows up. I haven’t hiked her yet today, so she’s all keyed up. After a few miles of hiking, she’ll sleep all afternoon.”

  They left after that. Matt sat in back while Mitch and Lana sat up front. They were in Mitch’s 4Runner, which was loud and uncomfortable, but he was the one who had known the way to the man’s house, so he drove. Matt hadn’t been in many SUVs, though, and it was interesting how different a perspective it gave him, being only a few more inches off the road. Even familiar intersections looked different from up here.

  “Glad the kids didn’t come,” Lana said. “I’d never hear the end of how much they wanted one.”

  “They’re great dogs,” Mitch said.

  “Way too high-energy for my house,” Lana said. Matt knew she meant too high-energy for him, and wondered why she didn’t just say so.

  “I could have a dog like that, but I’d need that man to control it, too,” Matt said. Both Lana and Mitch laughed, but Matt wasn’t joking.

  When they got back home Matt went straight to his room. He looked at all of the Vizsla pictures on his walls. You couldn’t tell from these nice photos of them all poised for show that they were buzzing with uncontainable energy inside. He took some of the Vizsla pictures down. He’d gotten used to the decorated walls, though, and didn’t like the empty spaces anymore. He put up some of the rabies-resistant kangaroo pictures that he’d had up before. He sat on the bed to rest. He was exhausted.

  When Lana knocked she woke him up.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were napping,” she said. She was holding a tray with his lunch on it.

  “I didn’t know I was napping, either,” he said.

  Lana smiled and set the tray down. Matt carefully arranged the sandwich plate, the apple, the bowl of pretzel sticks, the blue cup of milk. “Two-percent milk?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Lana said. “I guess we’re not ready for a Vizsla.”

  “No. I guess not.”

  “I see you put your kangaroo pictures back up. We could go to the zoo sometime, take a look at some live ones.”

  Matt took a bite and set down his sandwich. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and nodded. “Good,” he said. Lana left him to his lunch.

  Before he finished eating there was a lot of noise that could only mean the kids were home from Graham’s apartment. His room was close to the kitchen, and he could tell that’s where the kids were. Matt’s thin bedroom door couldn’t keep the noise out. In fact, the noise seemed louder than usual. He realized the sound was growing louder, which meant they were coming for him. He covered his ears, watching the door, but it didn’t open. Instead, a thick, creamy sheet of paper slid under the door. The noisy footsteps receded. Matt waited a minute to be sure they were gone before uncovering his ears and picking up the paper. It was a watercolor painting of the same hill and tree that Byron had sketched in his notebook, the one Matt had helped him with, but redone with nice broad strokes and a variety of blended colors. The color was thin, it needed more paint in some areas, but the colors were good, hints of purple in the green grass and a faint orange hue to the blue sky. Matt liked the peaceful feeling of it. He looked at it for a long time. He took down a kangaroo picture and pushed a thumbtack into Byron’s painting, hanging it over his computer monitor where he could see it as he worked. Lana noticed it when she came to take the tray away.

  “Very nice of him to do that for you. And kind of you to hang it up,” she said.

  Matt was in the middle of a drawing with colored pencils: a grassy hill with wind blowing, b
ending the taller blades down like ripples of velvet, the early spring grass blending from yellow to green.

  “It was nice of Byron to do a painting for me,” Matt said. “I want to do something nice back. You always try to do something equally nice in return when someone does something nice for you.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” Lana said. “What were you thinking of doing in return? A picture for him?”

  “I can do a picture. He can have this one. But Byron really needs help driving. He needs thirty more hours before he can take the driving test.”

  “I know. I’m letting him drive us to school every morning. He’s getting much better.”

  Matt did the math and shook his head. “That’s a fifteen-minute drive. He needs thirty hours. That’ll take a hundred and twenty days. I can help,” Matt said. “I get my license back next week.” He felt nervous about driving, now that he’d gotten in trouble for breaking the rules. He thought he’d be fine with Byron driving. He’d review every law himself as he taught it to Byron. And he’d have someone to take him to see the tadpoles.

  “That’s a nice offer,” Lana said. She looked down at Matt’s drawing, watched him sketch a bird soaring above the tall grass. “But don’t you think it’d be stressful for you? It’s a pretty out-of-control feeling, riding in the passenger seat while a new driver figures it all out.”

  “We could start in an empty parking lot somewhere,” Matt offered. “I can teach him three-point turns. And parallel parking. And the mechanics of a car. I’ll get a car again, now that I have somewhere safe to park it.”

  Matt wondered if he’d park in the garage, in the space now filled with boxes of stuff and the family bicycles. He could move it all, clear a space, if Lana told him where to put everything. He’d never had a garage before. His car would be protected and safe next to Lana’s.

  “What happened to your last car?” Lana asked. “You used to have that old Chevy, right?”

  Matt had a black car before. It was too hot inside during summer. He’d get a lighter color next time.

  “Someone took everything out of it,” Matt told her. “The stereo, the floor mats, they broke the glove box so it wouldn’t stay closed anymore. They took my rearview mirror. I didn’t like it after that. I gave it to Spike. I didn’t have my license anymore and he needed a car and I owed him something for the mess. He said there was no way we’d get our security deposit back. Did you ever see the mess?”

  “Yes, I saw the mess. Still, you didn’t have to give him your car.”

  “Byron will need help with the written test, too. I can teach him while we practice. I used to know the whole booklet. Every traffic law. But I’ll review it. Make sure we both know it all.”

  “I’m sure you still know it all.” Lana laughed. “We can talk about it more later.”

  She left and Matt returned to sketching his picture. It was time to add the Vizsla. Not the wild Bella jumping out of her skin, and not the poised pictures of Vizslas at dog shows like on his walls, and not even the on-leash trotting one he saw out the window some mornings. He drew a Vizsla racing freely through a grassy field, full sun, shadow beneath the dog, ears flying back, tracking a bird overhead. A happy Vizsla getting all of its energy out so that it would sleep and then maybe Matt could finally get close to it.

  When he finished the picture he took it upstairs to give it to Byron. On the way to Byron’s room he passed Abby, sitting on her bed, staring at the wall across the room. He paused and peeked inside to look at the wall, too, but he couldn’t see anything there. Abby turned and jumped when she saw Matt in her doorway.

  “Is there a problem with the wall?” he asked.

  Abby laughed but didn’t answer him. She sat up and tucked her hair behind her ears and looked at the books and papers on her bed. She had a desk in the corner of her room, but it was covered in jewelry and hair clips and nail polish and fashion magazines. She never used it for its proper purpose.

  “You don’t like the desk,” Matt said, pointing from her pile of schoolbooks on the bed to the cluttered desk.

  “I like to spread out,” she said.

  “You need a bigger desk,” Matt observed.

  Abby shrugged. “I just like the bed. It’s more comfortable. My desk chair’s so hard.”

  “You have very low body fat,” Matt said. “From not eating enough and burning too many calories exercising each day. You need to match your caloric intake with the amount of calories you expend each day. You’d be more comfortable in a regular chair if you ate more, or exercised less, gained some weight, had some padding.” Matt patted his backside, smiling. “Like me. Not too much, just enough.”

  Abby laughed. She crossed her arms over her body. She picked up a large book and held it up in front of her like a shield.

  “Algebra,” Matt observed, pointing toward the book. “That’s easy for you. Why aren’t you in a more advanced math class?”

  “All freshmen have to take algebra. Stupid requirement. But it’s AP algebra. Advanced placement.”

  Matt nodded. He remembered she’d been staring at the wall and checked it again. There was still nothing there. “Why don’t you like to eat?” he asked her. She made a little gasping sound but didn’t say anything, so he continued. “Cereal for breakfast. An apple for lunch. Salad or carrots for dinner. That’s only about three hundred calories a day. You need twelve hundred calories a day at least. You’re starving yourself. It’s unhealthy. Hard on your heart and other vital organs. It affects your sleep. Your memory. Your moods. Eating is essential for survival. Do you wish you wouldn’t survive?” Abby covered her face with her hands and the book fell open on her lap. Matt wasn’t sure she understood what he was trying to say—so often people couldn’t understand him. “Some food is terrible, but some is quite good. Maybe if you only eat the food you like, prepared the way you like, like I do, it would help.”

  He rubbed his hand over the wall, feeling the smoothness of the pale lavender paint. He preferred walls with a little texture and flat paint, but Lana’s whole house had smooth walls and semigloss paint. When he looked back toward Abby she was staring at him with red eyes. He pointed at them, wondering what was wrong, if maybe she had allergies like his brother Stephen had, back before he died. Stephen had been allergic to all sorts of things: pollen and penicillin and especially animals. They definitely couldn’t ever get a dog if Abby was allergic.

  “Your eyes are red,” Matt said, and Abby rubbed them with the heels of her hands. “Rubbing them makes it worse. If you have debris in there, you could scratch your eye. Is there something in your eye?”

  Abby sniffled and shook her head and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  “Oh, no. Are you sick?” Matt asked, backing up a step. He didn’t like being around sick people. Abby shook her head and let out a sigh. Some tears spilled out of her eyes and rolled down to her chin. She sniffled into her hands, her elbows resting on the algebra book on her lap. She was crying, which was even worse than her having allergies or being sick, because Matt didn’t ever know what to do about crying. Seeing people cry upset him too much, so he turned to leave.

  “I don’t know,” Abby whispered. Matt stopped in the doorway and waited, in case there was more. “I don’t know why I don’t eat more. I just can’t. I know I should but I don’t know how to start again. Am I really only eating three hundred calories a day?”

  “Yes, most days now. It was more, but now it’s only three hundred. That’s very low. Way too little for someone your age, your height,” Matt said. “I don’t really like food, either. I mean, not most food. Or dinner at the table. I like to eat alone. In the quiet. On my tray.”

  Abby nodded, wiping her tears with the hem of her shirt. “That’s good,” she said.

  “Well, yes. The tray is good. And the window. It’s better than the kitchen. The kitchen is noisy and has smells of foods I don’t like sometimes. Like brussels sprouts. And salmon.”

  Abby laughed and kept on crying at the same time
. She was snotty and hiccupping and Matt really wanted her to stop. He went to the bathroom and got the box of tissues and handed her the whole box. She needed it.

  “The main problem is you don’t eat enough calcium or protein. Your muscles and bones will start to suffer. You’re upset, that’s why you don’t eat. I get upset, too. I used to act out, throw things and break stuff, even stuff that I liked, and sometimes even hurt myself, when it was really bad. I’m on Wellbutrin now and that helps some, but sometimes it’s still there. The feeling. It won’t go away. Not completely. Not ever.” Matt hit himself in the chest, mimicked the sparks and shrapnel flying outward from there, like the painting he’d shown Byron. “You know that feeling? Even if you start eating again, the feelings will still be there. But not eating won’t make the feelings go away, either.”

  Abby coughed and cried some more. “You’re right. Not eating doesn’t help. Exercising sometimes does.”

  “Okay. Exercise is good. But you need to balance it. The calories you burn and the calories you eat. I can keep track of it if you can’t. I’m very good with numbers. I have spreadsheets all set up.”

  Abby laughed even though she was still crying. Matt felt better with her laughing. “So, what, you want me to report my eating and exercise to you each day? So you can track it for me? Is that why you asked about the carrots the other day?”

  “Communal carrots,” Matt said, and they both laughed. “You know, maybe . . . maybe sometimes you could even eat with me,” he offered. “If you want. Not on my tray, but maybe on your own. We could put them side by side. In the window. And we could be quiet? And just eat. Not a lot. Just enough.”

  Abby sniffled and wiped her eyes and didn’t say anything else, but after a moment she nodded into her wad of tissues. Matt crossed the hall to Byron’s room and slipped his Vizsla sketch under the closed door. He went downstairs and told Lana that he needed a second tray in the living room.