It’s a funny thing to worry about at a wedding dinner. Being up to the task. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. I’ve never taken these vows before, nor do I know if I ever will. But I have felt them in other ways. I feel this duty with Lily. To stand with her in sickness, until she is able to stand on her own four paws again.
After dinner, Meredith, Franklin, Jeffrey, and I retire to the Top of the Mark, a rooftop bar across California Street from our hotel. At night, the buildings around us twinkle like the night sky; in the distance the Golden Gate Bridge is dappled with tiny, shimmering headlights. Meredith pulls me aside to a quiet corner at the end of the bar.
“Are you happy?”
“For you?” I ask. “Of course!” I look across the room at Franklin, who is telling Jeffrey an animated tale.
“No. Are you happy?”
I’m not sure how to answer her truthfully. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been watching you this weekend.” Meredith takes the cocktail menu from my hand and sets it down on the bar.
“I keep dwelling on this text message. I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“From who?”
“From no one.”
“No one sent you a text message?”
“No one sent Jeffrey a text message.”
Meredith looks at me, frustrated. “This isn’t the punchline to some Family Circus cartoon, is it?”
“I’ll tell you some other time. I have to get through this thing with Lily first.”
“Lily will be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” Meredith puts a hand on my shoulder, but I don’t say anything in response. “Don’t use Lily as an excuse to ignore your own happiness.”
“I’m not,” I protest.
“Speak up for yourself.”
“I do!”
“No, you don’t. We were raised the same, remember. I know you better than you think I do.”
“Oh, really,” I say with a smirk. “Did you know I was about to do this?” I swiftly kick her in the shin. Payback. I hope no one sees and thinks she just married an abuser.
“Ow! Actually, yes.” Meredith rubs her shin while looking up at me. “You have to communicate your needs to get them met. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Bartender!”
Meredith sneers. “Not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
We bring champagne to Franklin and Jeffrey, and I offer a final toast. “Wishing you all good things in your life together.” Short. Simple. To the point. I look at Meredith, relaxed in her ivory gown. My sister is all grown up. I’m grateful we did our growing up together.
When we get back to our room, this time it’s me who changes our itinerary and books us two seats on the first morning flight out. There will be no lavish brunch with the newlyweds, only airport coffee and whatever they serve on the plane. If we’re lucky there will be a very quick good-bye before we sneak off to the airport.
I crawl into bed and let the day wash over me. As exhausting as it has been, our San Francisco adventure in many ways has been a small oasis of calm. I think of myself floating on the barge that sails the Tonga Room, swaying to Dan Fogelberg or Sheena Easton or someone who in the parallel universe of the Hurricane Bar is still popular.
I turn out the light.
Darkness.
The hard work of healing begins.
Squeezed
Squeeze,” I say.
“I am squeezing,” Jeffrey replies.
“Squeeze harder.”
“I’m squeezing as hard as I dare.”
“Well, you’re not squeezing her right, then.”
“Do you want to trade jobs? Because it’s easy to just stand there and hold a flashlight.”
“Not the way you keep moving.”
Jeffrey gets annoyed and he lets go. He stands up and hits his head on the outcropped tree branch above him.
“Look out for that branch,” I say, completely unhelpfully. I know this will enrage him, but I feel entitled to say what I want because I’m scared.
I hand Jeffrey the flashlight and crouch down next to Lily, who cowers on the gravel in the harsh puddle of light. I place my hands as the vet instructed, on either side of her under her abdomen, and I squeeze her soft bladder, in and back, in and back. Nothing. The light glints off the staples that run the length of her back. She’s laced up like a football.
“Anything?” Jeffrey asks.
I tip her up and look underneath for any evidence that she has peed. “Nothing.” I run through the steps again. “The doctor said it feels like a water balloon?”
“Yes. Like a water balloon. About the size of a small lemon.”
Lily’s abdomen does feel like a water balloon. Soft and squishy. Expressing her bladder was not something I had steeled myself for on the flight back from San Francisco. I thought I had prepared mentally as well as I could. I drank coffee instead of liquor. I stayed awake instead of sleeping. I made a shopping list for all the things we would need on the back of a napkin: a pen to keep her quarantined to a small area, blankets so she wouldn’t slip on the hardwood floors, toys that would keep her mentally engaged without exciting her physically. Treats—healthy ones, so that she wouldn’t gain weight during the inactivity of recovery. Carrying added pounds would just be additional stress on her spine.
Learning to express a dog’s bladder, however, was not on that list, despite how obvious it seems to me now. The vet who discharged us laid down a weewee pad on the cold metal examining table and showed us just how it was done. She made it seem so effortless, I assumed I had understood the lesson. Turns out I was wrong. We haven’t been able to get her to pee since we left the hospital.
“My poor girl. The indignity of it all.” I hoist Lily in the football carry that was demonstrated for us, supporting her hindquarters, careful to avoid
