Page 104 of When We Had Forever
He must waver, because only the chatter of the fire breaks the silence. But eventually, fabric slides over flesh. Leather creaks as he pulls on his jacket.
It takes an eternity. A hundred eternities. I don’t turn to see whether he puts on the necklace. I don’t want to know.
When he finishes, he says, “Come see me, once the shock wears off. Please. I’m staying at the Flying Dutchman.”
“Maybe,” I say, if only to get him out the door quicker.
“I’ll wait for you.” He sounds wrecked, the smolder in his voice extinguished. “However long it takes.”
With that, he pulls open the door. I don’t turn, just stare out through the bay window. I hear the carved grizzly scrape against the porch, then the scratch of the key turning in the lock.
Heavy footsteps thump down the steps and disappear. In the yard, headlights slice through the blackness and fade.
The whole time, my eyes never move. The reflection of the lantern flame shimmers on the windowpane, but I squint past it into the breathing dark, where the trees whisper.
I doubt even they can help me this time.
BEFORE
We bury Penny in the backyard, in the same spot she and I lounged in on sunny summer days when I spread out a picnic blanket and did my writing on the grass.
Today is not one of those days. It’s exceptionally gloomy, even for January, and the dismal wet glistens on the freshly turned earth of her grave. Yet I find the dreariness comforting, like even the sky realizes it should cry for her.
Which almost makes up for the fact that Michael doesn’t. He stands quiet, his mouth a pale, slanted line. Rain drips from his newly shorn hair and darkens the starched collar peeking from his raincoat.
He’s already told me he feels strange having a funeral for a dog, so I perform the roles of both priest and bereaved myself. While the clouds mourn overhead, I talk about how Penny spent ninety percent of our year and a half together asleep, how I loved the galumphy exhale she made whenever she lay down. How I even loved her terrible smell. I talk about the charm of her missing teeth and how much I looked forward to the way she always held up one paw when we came home, as if in greeting. Most of all, I talk about how glad I am that we were able to give her some comfort at the end of her life.
Michael blinks hard at regular intervals. I laugh and cry, all the while wondering if his silence means he’s feeling too much or not enough.
Later, over dinner, I tell him I’ve made us another appointment with Darlene.
He sets his fork down, perfectly perpendicular to his plate, as if he’s drafting walls and angles, even here. “Why would we go to the shelter again?”
“To find our next Penny. I mean, not anotherPenny, obviously. That’d be weird if we named two dogs the same—”
“I don’t want another pet.”
I stop, my brow creasing. “What? Why?”
“I just don’t.”
I frown. “But Penny was so easy. She was hardly any work, aside from her pills. And I was always the one to give them to her. I mean, don’t you miss her? Doesn’t the house feel empty now?”
“I do,” he admits. “And it does. But I don’t want another dog.” He resumes cutting his chicken parmigiana into disturbingly uniform bites.
I watch his cutlery rise and fall. “Come on. If you’re going to veto it completely, at least tell me why.”
He sighs, and I know if I press, I won’t get any answer at all.
With clenched teeth, I push my chicken around my plate. The scrape of metal against porcelain fills the silence.
“I just can’t stand it when things die,” he finally says. “When they leave me.”
I pause. “Even dogs?”
“Even dogs.”
I sit back, wondering what that really means. Whether this has something to do with Lily and his brother or whether he just resents change.
