The Wonder of Lost Causes, page 23
Laureen leads the way up a short flight of stairs and across a wooden deck to the trailer’s unlocked front door. “Phone’s by the TV. Shower’s down from the kitchen on the left. Plenty of towels and hot water. Don’t be shy.”
She raids the refrigerator for a box of eggs and a packet of bacon. It’s like she’s been expecting us, like people break down in these parts all the time. Maybe she’s glad of the company. Or maybe she’s just a good person and I need to get comfortable letting good people do what they do best.
I check in with Jasper. “You okay?”
Big happy eyes and a big exaggerated nod. It doesn’t take much to please this kid.
“Then I’m gonna call the rental company. You grab your bag of toiletries from the suitcase and I’ll be by in a minute to wrap your PICC.”
Ziploc bags and surgical tape were invented for showering with a sterile catheter dangling from your arm.
With a replacement vehicle on the way and Jasper clean, damp, and rosy, hooked up to his first IV hit of the day, I take my turn in a stranger’s bathroom and try not to notice how easily I’ve taken off my clothes and washed up behind a transparent plastic curtain decorated with rows of yellow ducks. Truth be told, after the flight, the drive, and the impromptu camping trip, this could be the Four Seasons.
Refreshed by the shower and a change of clothes, I allow my nose to lead the way, seduced by the smell of a hot breakfast, past the framed folded American flag and the photo of a young, handsome man in military uniform, and into the kitchen.
“Out here.”
It’s Laureen, calling from the deck, and before I can join her she’s jabbing a finger toward the pumps, at Jasper, antibiotic ball in one hand, squeegee in the other, straining upward and across to swipe away some frothy bubbles from a car’s windshield. The pump handle protrudes from the open gas tank and, close by, gently swaying in a rocking chair, sits Whistler, head held high, overseeing everything. Jasper catches me watching, smiles, but doesn’t wave, like he needs to be serious, like he’s got an important job to do.
I feel Laureen’s eyes on me, taking me in, before she reaches out a hand and pats my arm. I glance over, fearing a “There, there,” but instead her subtle smile telegraphs, “He’s okay,” and, more importantly, “No need to explain.”
“Mom, Mom,” shouts Jasper, running from the pumps to the deck, waving a five-dollar bill over his head. “The nice man gave me a tip.”
I can’t speak. I should insist, “That belongs to Laureen,” but my son is running, running, and he’s not breathless or coughing.
“Good job, kid,” says Laureen. “But let’s get your mom something to eat.”
Jasper and Whistler ignore me, slide into Laureen’s slipstream, plop back down in the kitchen, and pick up where they left off with breakfast—one chowing down, the other drooling saliva.
I’m left stranded on the empty deck with the lasting image of my beaming son, the way he takes so much pleasure from the little things, the forgettable, nothing moments of a normal life, as if pumping gas was on that dreadful bucket list project from school and now he’s checked it off.
“You eating or not?” cries Laureen.
I apologize, slink into the kitchen, and pull up a chair beside Jasper as Laureen slides a plate loaded with bacon, scrambled eggs, and pancakes my way.
The bell rings—another customer rolling up to the pumps.
“Thought this might happen,” says Laureen. “My version of rush hour.” And without another word she abandons us for a large SUV.
Jasper swallows down a mouthful of food—he’s eating like he’s going to the chair—checks that we’re alone, and says, “She’s real nice, isn’t she?”
Real nice. Since when did my son turn northwest Texan? He’s such a mimic. I guess I should be grateful that he didn’t go all English on me and say she was “smashing.”
In my hesitation he adds, “You need to check on Homer.”
“Why? What’s wrong with him?”
“When you were in the shower I was petting him and he and I had, you know, our thing . . . our . . . ‘silent correspondence.’” Out come the air quotes. “I know, I’m supposed to be dialing it back, but I’ve kept it to myself, and it wasn’t my fault, it just happened, and I’m sorry, but I’m worried and because you’re a vet and because Laureen has been so nice, I thought, well, maybe you should check him out. Give her a free consult.”
I glance out the window; that SUV must have a thirty-gallon tank—Laureen will be a while. Back to Jasper, catching the unmistakable, hopeful glint in those baby blues. My son is right, she’s been an angel, and it’s the least I can do—but if I examine her dog, unsolicited by his owner, in the absence of overt discomfort or disease, prompted only by the instincts of an eleven-year-old boy, aren’t I buying into his fantasy? Aren’t I condoning a delusion that upgrades my son from disabled to disturbed?
I pick up a rasher of bacon, crunch down on one end, and point the other at Jasper. “Okay. I’ll do it. But only if you do a better job of telling me what it is you think is going on between you and dogs. Promise me there’s no actual talking.”
He winces. “That’d be lame, Mom.”
“So?”
He puts down his knife and fork, sits up, his body practically crackling with animation like he wants to get this right.
“I just try to be open, talk normal, like I would any animal, but not baby talk and not a pretend conversation. Most of the time I don’t get anything, but that’s because I’m not the one making it happen. It’s like I place lots of calls and they don’t pick up, only every so often they do.”
Laughing, dropping a sarcastic comment might be easier, healthier, but there’s something about his demeanor—innocence, maybe honesty. I just hope he doesn’t utter the word telepathy.
“It’s hard to explain, but sometimes they make me feel something, anything, could be happy, sad, angry, curious, hungry, scared, or whatever.”
“But Jasper, how do you know it’s not what you’re feeling, what you’re imagining?”
“I don’t,” he says. “But then there are lots of things that are impossible to explain.”
“Like?”
“Like . . . like . . . why cats purr? And what makes salmon migrate, and Arctic terns, and monarch butterflies? And that sensation you get, deep down in your belly—”
“A gut feeling.”
“Yeah, when something is definitely wrong or definitely right, and you just know. You trust it. None of us have a proper explanation, but we all get it.”
Whistler checks in with Jasper and the two of them stare back, all full of themselves, like they just blew my argument out of the water.
“And Homer made you feel something?”
“Yeah, I felt full, like I’d eaten too much, like I was stuffed, but this was before I ate any breakfast.”
The forecourt bell rings again.
The specifics of this description have me worried. Jasper’s intestines are in a constant battle with the buckets of medications they absorb. I hope there’s not a problem.
“You took your enzymes? You need me to feel your tummy?”
“No. I need you to feel Homer’s tummy.”
Homer hasn’t moved, flopped over on the tired pink carpet in front of the blank TV screen, two circles of lilac fur bookending a couch, the cats, a copy of Reader’s Digest and TV Guide between them. Strange for a Lab, missing out on the possibility of a dropped table scrap, the enthusiasm of his initial greeting forgotten, as if he used up his supply of energy for the entire day.
I get up from the table, tail thumps telling me Homer approves of my attention, a language that makes sense, and I feel his body relax into an expectation of a welcome belly rub. But as I get down on my knees, hands transitioning from petting to palpation, Homer flinches, especially as my probing fingers bump up around the perimeter of the softball-size mass protruding from his spleen.
“Well?”
I’m down on the floor, Jasper and Whistler overhead, expectant relatives bracing for bad news.
How is this possible? Lucky guess? Did Laureen confide? I doubt it.
“Homer has something in his belly, a mass, probably coming off his spleen.”
No fist pump, no hubris, just a reassuring pat to Whistler and a worried expression I’ve seen more times than I can count. “That’s bad, right?”
I get to my feet, strain to look out to the pumps where Laureen leans into a passenger-side window.
“It can be,” I say, “more often than not.”
“What should we do?”
I take a deep breath and take in the reality of the threadbare couch; the chipped, scratched, outdated furniture; the stains on the old carpet; the cheap chintziness of the owl figurines on the windowsill. This kind and generous widow, having lost a husband and a son, is getting by—but only just. How can she afford expensive diagnostics and surgery and whatever else Homer needs? What kind of a person would I be for saying, “Thanks for everything and by the way your dog’s got cancer”?
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” says Jasper. “We tell Laureen. If something bad is going to happen to me, you’d want to know. Right?”
I flash to the other CF mom in the hospital kitchen, and the old man in the hospital garden—my ghosts of Christmas future—and will my face to conquer the brooding fear of what lies ahead. But then again, after the incident with the biker, perhaps I should ignore my instincts, and trust Jasper’s. For all I know, Laureen might be a millionaire.
Having finished breakfast and Jasper’s chest PT (Laureen insisted we use her bedroom), she and I sit out on the deck with coffee, waiting for a new Fiat 500 to arrive as Jasper flits between trucks and cars, basking in the financial rewards of his new vocation as a “fossil fuel replenishment specialist.” He and Whistler, though content to linger around the pumps, keep checking my way with looks that say, “Did you tell her yet, did you tell her?”
Laureen and I say little. It’s just after eight, the sound of Interstate traffic picking up in the distance, and already the October sky is a dazzling blue. There’s nothing particular to look at but an easy quiet flourishes between us as we stare out, like old friends watching a child at play on a beach. Here I can forget about my lack of sleep, about the ache in my neck and shoulder muscles. Here it is possible to ignore the silent indignation when I told Dr. Dan of my plan, ignore the fear that this was a waste of time and money, the fear that I might be causing my son serious and potentially irreparable harm to his health.
Then, quite unexpectedly, she says, “He’s going to be fine.”
And instead of my knee-jerk response of “No, he’s not,” or “How can you know?” I’m suffused with this certainty, this truth beyond hope that somehow she is right and I just need to see what she sees and make it happen.
“When I lost my son, folks reminded me that the Lord only hands it out to those who can handle it.”
I flinch. I can’t help it, the desire to lash out instinctive and visceral.
“What a load of crap,” she adds. “Bunch of idiots. Reckon we all suffer, one way or another. Might be sudden, might take years, might be a baby, might be a granddaddy, but that’s life, and there ain’t nothing none of us can do about it. No point in askin’ ’bout that son of yours ’cause I can see what’s in front of my eyes. Looks like he’s got it all figured out.”
She’s staring directly at him and I want to say thank you, but it feels so trite and inadequate.
“And that dog of his, he may be butt-ugly, but boy, they’re something, those two.”
It doesn’t feel like the perfect segue, but in part it’s driven by a fear that she’s going to let slip how Homer is her saving grace, the last vestige of a tangible connection to her late son or husband. “Laureen, you’re too polite to ask, but I’m a veterinarian, and ordinarily I don’t go around examining other people’s dogs . . . but Homer has a health problem, and it seems only right to let you know.”
“If it’s that lump on his hip it’s just fat. My vet checked it out. Been there forever.”
“No, this is inside his belly, probably on his spleen. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Homer’s going to need blood work, probably an abdominal ultrasound, chest X-rays, and then there’s—”
“I’m on it,” Laureen says, getting to her feet, checking her watch. “I’ll call Doc Nelson the moment he opens at nine. Get him right in. Whatever it takes for my boy.”
What was I worried about? Just because a client pulls up in a brand-new Mercedes doesn’t mean they’ll pay for a shot and a worming tablet. Once again my son was right. Homer was going to get the best care possible.
I stand and Laureen insists on giving me a hug.
“And there was you thinking I was the one doing the rescuing. Try telling me we didn’t cross paths for a reason.”
I don’t have an answer, but fortunately I don’t need one. A tow truck from the rental company rolls onto the forecourt, and—shock of all shocks—it looks like Dwayne has decided to give us an upgrade.
50
Jasper
MY BUM’S GONE to sleep from all this driving and even though our brand-new shiny black Chevy Tahoe is sick, it’s so big that Mom won’t let me sit up front. On the plus side, Whistler is spread across my lap, head inches from mine, making sure I see a canine version of the world from between his ears.
I’m wearing my Lionel Messi Argentina soccer shirt, white and sky-blue stripes, the one Auntie Gwen gave me for my last birthday. It was nice of her, finding out that Messi is the best soccer player in the world, but England and Argentina had this war over some island, like, decades ago, and they still have beef, so wearing the shirt always makes me feel like a bit of a traitor.
“Okay back there?” asks Mom, waiting for my nod in the rearview mirror. “Just a couple more hours.”
My hand rests on the big Antarctica scar, slow calm heartbeat just under my fingers, like a countdown to goodbye. It gives me a bad feeling.
“Mom, do you think Whistler’s ever had his DNA tested?”
“Doubt it,” she says, and then, giving me the suspicious mirror eyes asks, “Why?”
“Well, if I was Emily, the girl with the seizures, I’d want to know what kind of service dog I was getting. You think Mr. Silver showed her the photos Martha sent?”
Mom squirms in her seat, which doesn’t make much sense because they’re really comfortable. Then she says, “People see what they want to see, one breed in his ears, another in his legs, his tail, whatever, but you know what, I love the fact that Whistler’s a mutt, a mix, a mongrel. Whichever label you choose, you still have to call him a very special service dog. He’s living proof of the potential in an underdog. I may not see Chihuahua, or pit bull, or dalmatian, at least not on the surface, but so what, it’s in there deep down. Know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I think Whistler is every dog.”
I like this answer, and that makes Mom smile. I don’t tell her, but I notice when she’s happy, like when she and Laureen had big goodbye hugs.
Mom says she’d give me her lungs any time, which is meant to show how much she loves me, but sometimes—especially at night—I hear her on the phone with Auntie Gwen, and it’s obvious that I’m the reason she’s sad. People talk about one dog year being the same as seven people years because time passes too fast for dogs. My disease makes Mom sad because it makes time pass too fast for me. That’s why kids with CF have a shorter life than normal, sometimes as short as a dog’s life, and anyone who knows dogs knows how hard that can be on those who love us.
“Mom, now do you believe me?”
I get the narrow mirror eyes instead of a “Believe what?”
“About Homer, about the thing I have.”
“I believe that dogs are definitely more receptive to you than me. But . . .”
“But?”
“Well . . . diagnosing a splenic tumor with, what . . . a hunch? It’s hard for me. You’re on so many medications I’m more worried that ‘feeling full’ means you’re constipated. And guessing that something had to be seriously wrong with the dog wasn’t rocket science. A Labrador with no interest in freshly cooked bacon? Hard to believe he’s still alive, let alone sick.”
Mom reaches for her bottle of water and takes a really long swig. Fortunately, she notices my best angry pout.
“Believe is a strong word, Jasper, and when you get older and study science subjects like biology and chemistry, you’ll see that it takes more than one example to prove a point. I do know you have a certain way with dogs and they have a certain way with you. Especially the ugly one trying to crush you right now.”
That’s it. That’s all I get. But then:
“Sometimes the things we choose to believe in should stay private and personal, you know, like God, or heaven, or ghosts, or . . . I don’t know, aliens.”
She makes it sound like she’s really saying, “Keep it to yourself,” and, worse still, “Don’t embarrass me.” I didn’t want to have to do this, but Mom’s leaving me no choice. It’s time to spill, share the big reason, the one that will make her upset.
“Mom, remember that time in the hospital, the one when I kind of lost it, ’cause I really wanted there to be something good to make up for all the bad things that happen with CF?”
“How could I forget? You almost never cry.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes when you and Auntie Gwen talk on the phone, I accidentally hear you getting upset, and you cry after hanging up. Lots. And it scares me, you blaming yourself for what’s happened to me, because it’s not like you meant to give me CF, which means it’s not like it’s your fault. That’s why I want you to believe in what happens with me and dogs because if you do, you’ll stop feeling sad.”
Her mirror eyes are locked on mine. If she makes us crash then I take it back, ’cause me dying will definitely be her fault.
“You know I can’t smell properly and my hearing’s not right and I probably need glasses and the ends of my fingers keep getting numb and tingly, and I know it’s nothing compared to my lungs, but instead of five senses I’m down to, like, two and three-quarters, and it totally sucks, but . . . it’s like a trade, for something totally awesome, a hundred times better, and when the magic happens, it makes everything we go through a little less bad. So, if you want to blame yourself for giving me CF, then go ahead, but guess what, that means you also gave me this thing, this gift, and that’s why I want you to believe, because if you do, you’ll never ever have to feel guilty again.”
