by Laura Tims
“He’s missing, you know,” I say dazedly. “My dog.”
He’s wordless for one second too long.
Then he rasps, “It’s not my fault, Sam,” and I fill with black horror. “I fed him, I gave him water. I don’t, I don’t know what . . . He had a seizure or something. I didn’t mean . . .”
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair.
“I was driving around, blowing off steam, and I saw him in that yard. . . . It was like I was meant to find him. He jumped on me, he licked he, he didn’t care what I’ve done. He was just happy I existed. . . .”
It’s not fair.
I repeat it like a prayer, but no one will answer it, because no one ever has.
And it doesn’t stop Anthony from removing a blanket-wrapped bundle from the backseat of his car and handing it to me.
“I needed someone to be happy I existed, Sam,” he moans. “I was going to give him back.”
The bundle is the right weight, but not the right warmth or softness.
Another hole in me to add to all the others.
“The world thinks I’m psycho, I got kicked out of school, my mom’s sending me to rehab, and I’m probably going to jail—my future’s fucked, Sam. It’s too much; I can’t have you convinced I killed Tito, too. It was an accident! Like the crash. You understand, right?”
I clutch the bundle to my chest. I never realized how small he was. When someone is filled with so much love, it makes them seem bigger.
“Talk, for fuck’s sake. Tell me you understand. Is this what you want, for me to sound as pathetic as possible, just like No-Moore? Everyone else hates him, I hate him . . . if you hate him, too . . .”
His face folds, and he starts bawling like a kid.
Which he is. He’s only been eighteen for a month.
“I didn’t do it,” he weeps. “Please. You can’t not say anything.”
I lay the bundle tenderly on my passenger seat, and then I get in the car and drive away.
I can see him in the rearview mirror, sitting alone in the pool of light, surrounded by empty pavement.
Then I turn onto the main road, and I can’t see him at all anymore.
We bury him the next day.
Dad digs a deep hole behind the doghouse, pausing only to wipe away tears or sweat, I don’t know which.
We all wear black, and it’s not until we’re standing in a circle around the grave that I realize every one of us is wearing what we’d worn to Mom’s funeral—except Eliot, who comes in the suit from Kendra’s party.
Red eyed and sniffling, Rex carries out the box from my closet. We hung all the pictures back up, except for the one of Tito licking Mom, which we left in the box with his blanket-wrapped body.
“You Raise Me Up” plays on the phone tucked into Rex’s breast pocket as he lowers the box into the ground. Then he pours in an entire box of Milk-Bones. They patter loudly on the dirt.
“Here’s some snacks to bring to dog heaven, little man. I’d tell you to share with the other ghost dogs, but I know you will, because you’re a good dog.”
He retreats, blowing his nose.
Dad steps forward and drops several slices of Kraft cheese on top of the Milk-Bones.
“You didn’t care for the pills, but you liked the cheese, and now you can finally have a piece without the pills.” There’s a pause as he looks down into the hole, his shoulders slumped. “My wife once told me that the worst thing about life was having to outlive dogs. Now I’d argue it’s having to outlive her, but you come in second, Tito.”
Lena is crying harder than any of us. She wobbles forward and adds the leash she braided for him when she was in high school.
“I’m s-sorry I made you think I didn’t l-love you anymore,” she sobs. “You made me sad because you r-reminded me of Mom, but that w-wasn’t your fault.”
“Nah,” says Rex gruffly, putting his arm around her. “He knew you loved him. He probably just thought you were on your period.”
She buries her face in his shoulder.
Dad is blinking rapidly. I can feel myself trying to drift into numbness, but instead, I squeeze my hands into fists until my knuckles crack. I’m determined to stay here. This pain is mine, and I’m going to feel it now, not let it poison me for the rest of my life.
“You go,” I whisper to Eliot.
He shuffles forward.
“I doubt dogs can learn to play the ukulele, particularly ghost dogs, because even if they had opposable thumbs, they would be intangible.”
My family stares at him. He clears his throat and unzips his backpack, taking out his ukulele and a pack of cigarettes.
“You liked this when I played it for you, and I’ve been thinking it’s time to get rid of it. Someone once told me a gift should have a piece of me in it. Good-bye, Tito. Now I’m back to having only one friend.”
Unsteadily he places the ukulele and the cigarettes into the hole.
“Also, the cigarettes are because I’m supposed to stop smoking,” he adds. Then he moves back next to me and gazes at the sky with fierce determination.
The rest of them turn to me, but I’m not one for public displays of sadness. I shake my head.
So Dad fills in the hole, and Rex lights some discount sparklers and sticks them in the ground, and that is the end of Tito.
“Apparently I can only cry at dog funerals,” notes Eliot suddenly.
I look at him, and his eyes are wet.
I take his hand and interlace our fingers. They fit like two halves finally coming together.
I can’t say I don’t consider the option of getting into bed and never coming out.
The urge is there.
But I have to reply to Eliot’s texts, and Kendra’s. I have to go with Dad to meet the new therapist, and help Lena pick a new color for the living room (we choose a sandy shade, like Tito’s fur). I have to hover over Rex and count his push-ups, because he’s decided that getting ripped is a better way to deal with grief than getting high.
And because I’m doing all those things anyway, I might as well wash my hair and eat breakfast and commit to being alive.
When Mom died, it booby-trapped the house with pits of absence. Simple things would trigger the sudden plummet in my gut—pouring an extra mug of tea without thinking, accidentally reaching for her tea tree oil shampoo bottle that had been there for weeks because there was some left but no one dared use it.
But then I memorized where the holes were and got better at avoiding them.
Now there’s a whole new set.
I’ll stretch my toes under the table in search of fur to bury them in, or drop bread on the floor during dinner that stays there until I sweep it up. No one head butts my leg when I walk through the door.
But by Monday night, I’m not dehydrated from crying anymore. And on Tuesday, I’m capable of collecting myself enough to sit down and write a short email to Trez.
Keep your future. Just do something good with it. –Sam
Dad is probably right and it’s a good enough punishment that she’ll never forgive herself.
But I hope she does, someday. She used to be a shadow, but now she has bold edges. She paints her nails a different color; she’s a stage manager. She planted things in her wreckage, and they’re growing strong and fierce. I want to see what kind of fruit they bear.
It’s a better legacy for Mom than suffering—people changing for the better. Mom would prefer it.
I don’t know if it’d be the right thing to do for anyone else, but it’s the right thing to do for me.
I hit Send and go to sleep.
And on Wednesday, Rex asks me to help him study for his GED test.
And on Thursday, I don’t hear Dad go downstairs for his usual midnight snack.
On Friday, Lena adopts a cat.
“His name is Keokolo!” she says brightly, struggling to keep the cat in her arms as its bottom paws scrape her legs. “It’s a Hawaiian name—it
means ‘gift from God.’”
The cat is a rotting shade of orange, and its face looks like a carved pumpkin, missing teeth and all. Its escape strategy is apparently to go as limp as possible until Lena loses the battle with gravity. Then it droops into a puddle on the floor, meowing like a garbage disposal.
“What the fuck is that?” asks Rex from the top of the stairs.
“Our new cat!” she says happily.
Rex clings to the rail. “Sam, it’s moving.”
The cat is slinking across the floor. I hold my bag protectively in front of my chest.
Lena coos at it. “The Humane Society said he’d been there the longest, which means he needed love the most.”
“You can’t just assign us a cat,” Rex says.
“Did you talk to Dad first?” I ask.
She opens her mouth to argue, but then she stops, probably because she didn’t. “I was just missing Tito, and thinking about how pets can be a very calming, therapeutic presence. . . .”
She glances at the cat, whose left ear is missing. For a second she just looks at it. Then, suddenly, she bursts into mildly hysterical laughter.
“Oh my God,” she gasps. “I bought a cat.”
“They charged you for that?” Rex asks, sounding concerned. He comes downstairs, and I elbow him.
“There was an adoption fee.” Lena sits on the floor with a thump. “Oh, lord. You’re both right. What am I doing?”
Rex and I exchange looks.
“You’re nobly saving a lost soul,” I decide. “A lost cat soul.”
“He’s not the ugliest cat,” Rex offers. “I like his . . .”
There’s a very long silence as he struggles to think of something.
“His face,” he says eventually, then peers at the cat to confirm. “Nope, his face creeps me out. But I’m sure he has a great personality.”
“All he does is sleep,” Lena says tearfully.
He pats her head. “All I do is sleep around, and I have a great personality.”
We spend the next hour convincing Lena we like the cat. By the time Dad comes home, we’re in too deep, and he’s outvoted.
And then next morning when I come downstairs, Rex is asleep on the couch with Keokolo on his lap.
I don’t see Eliot much over spring break. Every time I invite him to hang out, he makes mysterious excuses. At first I think maybe he’s avoiding the outside world, thanks to that video, but the hubbub about that has already died way down. Apparently there was a baby born in Arkansas with two heads.
Finally I get fed up, steal Rex’s truck, and head over myself. Knowing him, he’s probably having a dire medical emergency and is afraid I’ll call an ambulance. Which I will, next time. No more not calling ambulances.
When I pull up, there’s a huge white vehicle in the driveway, and my heart stops. But it’s not an ambulance.
It’s a moving van.
I jump out of the truck.
“Sam!” Eliot is on the porch, holding a cardboard box. A moving box, like the ones we unpacked together. He ambles across the lawn toward me with nowhere near enough urgency or shame. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“Oh, are we talking about things we haven’t told each other?” I shriek. “What about how you didn’t tell me that you’re moving?”
He stops in his tracks. “Yes, I’m moving, but—”
“I know you’re new to the whole friendship thing, but this is something you’re really supposed to tell your friends!” If I hadn’t sworn to myself I’d never hit Eliot, I’d probably slap him.
“Sam—”
“How could I have been so stupid?” I rage. “Of course you were lying when you said Gabriel wouldn’t transfer you! How could he not transfer you, after that video? Jesus!”
Eliot puts down his box. I whack it with a crutch. Hopefully it’s something breakable.
“If you would just—” he starts.
“I’m never going to see you again, am I?” There are tears burning in my eyes, no matter how much I wish there weren’t. I can’t lose anything else. “You’re—you’re—you’re the only interesting thing in my life, you’re everything, you’re—”
“Can I shut-up kiss you?” he interrupts.
My skull implodes. “WHAT?”
“I need you to shut up for a second, so I was wondering if I could shut-up kiss you, since nothing else seems to be working.”
“It’s not a shut-up kiss if you ask, you idiot!”
“It’d be rude to do it without asking,” he says, affronted.
“Well, the answer is NO! No, you cannot shut-up kiss me when I’m yelling at you about how you didn’t tell me you were moving—”
“I’m moving six miles,” he cuts in.
“Six . . . miles?” I repeat, a wave of dizziness washing over me.
“One school district over. You are correct; there was no way Gabriel wasn’t going to transfer me after that video, but I figured that the benefits were worth the drawbacks. And I very successfully talked him down from Florida, so you’re welcome.”
“Six miles,” I echo again.
“And when I say drawbacks, I mean significant ones. It doesn’t matter where we live now, because he has a new remote job, which he’ll be doing from home.” He grimaces. “As in the place where I also live.”
“So you’re not disappearing forever?”
It’s still not completely easy to breathe.
He smiles. “Not disappearing even temporarily.”
I hurry up the steps and peek inside the house. Everything we unpacked is packed up again.
“It’s still farther away,” I grumble, my cheeks warming as Eliot joins me on the porch. “And I won’t get to see you at school.”
“You have other people at school,” he says simply. “Besides, if we’re always together, I’ll never end up getting to know anyone else, because I’ll only want to talk to you. And as much as I like to think of myself as the only interesting thing in your life, I shouldn’t be.”
I won’t be able to sit with him at lunch, but Kendra’s table never filled my empty spot. I won’t be able to ride home with him anymore, but Rex is sober now, and anyway he said I can borrow his truck for school once I get my license. Eliot won’t be everything anymore, but he’ll still be something.
But what happens when he graduates? He’s never talked about his plans after high school. I liked that we were in the same vague state of not having any, but now it makes me nervous, the idea of him in a different school, bored and unfulfilled. Bad things happen when he’s bored.
He needs a new hobby.
“Eliot,” I say. “That is a very wise thing you just said.”
He squints at me suspiciously.
“I know this is random, but did I ever tell you that I think you’d be a really great therapist?”
He laughs. “My own therapist won’t even see me anymore.”
My heart skips, but all I say is “You probably had a rough time in therapy because your brain is naturally trying to swap positions. Being a therapist is literally just your favorite thing to do, figuring out the patterns in people’s lives, except you get paid for it.”
“Yes, I’m sure many people would pay me to point out their problems as bluntly as possible.”
“By the time you became a therapist, you’d probably be better at that part. But the point is that it’s a job where you’re supposed to say the stuff you think. Instead of making people mad, you’d be helping them.” I’m talking faster by the second. “My sister says lots of colleges are still accepting applications for next spring. You’d have something to use your brain for, other than figuring out when people are going to break up.”
He’s lost in thought for a minute, but then he snaps back to me. “How about you? I hear lots of colleges are still accepting applications for next spring.”
I shrink back. “I’m not like you. I don’t have something like psychology I’m naturally good at.”
“So beco
me not-naturally good at something. If you don’t know what, experiment. Join a club.” He sits down on the porch. “I hear the Math Club is low in numbers.”
I grimace. “That pun was so stupid I had to block out everything you said from my memory.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” he chides. “Once I’m an acclaimed therapist, people will pay by the hour for my advice. You’re getting it for free.”
The Math Club does always need new members. And one of the girls is in Calc with me.
He checks his phone. Now that I’m paying attention, I realize it’s the third time he’s done it.
Suddenly he hops to his feet and takes me by my shoulders.
“Sam, do you trust me?”
“No.”
“Fair enough.” He sighs. “Let me rephrase: would you like to make one thousand dollars?”
“What’s happening?” I break away from him and check the bushes next to the porch. “Where are the secret cameras?”
He seems nervous, sticking his hands in his pockets and then pulling them back out. “It’s funny how meeting someone makes you want to spend a summer doing something other than smoking on your living-room floor, for once. We could have a pretty awesome summer with a thousand dollars. We could take a road trip.”
I blink. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but whatever it is, it’s important to him. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing much. Just kiss me in—” He checks his phone again. “The next thirty seconds.”
My jaw works. “Eliot, if you want to try your kissing experiment now, you don’t need to come up with these weird elaborate—”
“Twenty-five.” He taps his watch. “Twenty-four.”
“Quit that! What does this have to do with a thousand dollars?”
“Twenty,” he says ominously. “Nineteen.”
I’m starting to sweat. “The last time I kissed you I was drunk!”
“Fifteen. That’s true, but we both know that between the two of us, you’re still the only one brave enough to instigate a sober kiss. Ten . . .”
I’m struck by a wild suspicion that, as a misguided romantic gesture, he’s rigged the whole house to blow if I don’t kiss him, and that’s the real reason why he packed everything up.
“Also, supposedly I’m not allowed to kiss you until I take you out to dinner three hundred times, so you have to do it,” he says. “Five. Four . . .”
