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Everything felt eerie, askew, and dangerous. Breaking routine scared me, but the idea of living with a man I barely knew and was too terrified to ask to tuck me into bed was scarier, so I’d obediently sat next to him on the couch, as he’d mindlessly watched a finance show on CNN and flipped through his mail. A commercial appeared on the screen, advertising a non-profit organization for abused and neglected animals. In the commercial, they showed sad puppy faces and disfigured kittens staring at the cameras, begging to be helped. One of the dogs was lying in a pool of mud. A fleabag made of bones and skin. Both its eyes were missing, and it looked like it didn’t have any teeth left. I’d gasped in horror, clutching the fabric of the expensive sofa in my tiny fingers.
“Edie, stop doing that. It’s suede. It’s a very gentle fabric.” He’d slapped my wrist, but not forcefully. Never forcefully.
I’d immediately let go, curling my spine, turning to face him. “Can we donate?”
“I donate enough at work.”
“Really? To shelters?” I’d perked up, desperate to cling to a positive thing about him. Building a character of the people we know is a psychological mechanism I would later learn can also bite you in the ass—because I’d wanted badly to believe my father was a good man and that my mother was okay. In my mind, he was caring and generous. Not calculated and indifferent. He’d given me a sideways glance, most of his attention still divided between the screen and the thick pile of letters.
“No. I donate to whoever needs my help in our community.”
“The commercial makes me feel funny, Dad. Funny…sad,” I’d admitted, looking away from the screen as the narrator explained all the horrific things these animals had been through. Back then, I still called him that. Dad.
“It’s life, Edie.”
“I can’t look.” My head moved back and forth, my knees tucked under my chin as I’d held myself together. “It’s too sad.”
“Life’s sad, so you better get used to it.”
I’d known very little about the world back then, which was probably why I’d still clung to my optimism. What I had known was that he’d made me feel uncomfortable. Because, for the first time since I could remember, a smirk formed on his thin, hard lips as he’d continued flipping the letters.
I’d thought, why here, why now, why so happy?
The next day, he’d picked me up from school. I’d been shocked to say the least. We usually had a driver who helped me get around from place to place. School, afternoon activities, and playdates. Never my parents. I’d felt flattered and anxious as I’d climbed into the back of Jordan’s car, trying to be on my best behavior. I’d wondered where we were going, since he’d driven in the opposite direction from our house, but hadn’t wanted to sound ungrateful or suspicious. It was only when I’d started seeing the woods and Saint Angelo Lake, past the city limits, that my mouth fell open.
“Where are we going?”
He’d just grinned in the rearview mirror like a predator, flicking the signal and taking a sharp right. I later realized why.
It was an animal shelter. My feet had dragged, and going past the rusty gate leading to the kennels had felt a lot like handing my soul to someone I didn’t trust.
“Sometimes, Edie, you need to look cruelty in the eye and not do anything about it. In order to succeed in life, you need to let logic and rationality dictate your behavior, not your feelings. Now, you know that you’re allergic to dogs and cats, right?”
I remember nodding, my mind still a nervous fog. I could never have a dog or a cat—that was a given—but I’d never asked for one. All I’d wanted was to donate some money to that non-profit organization on TV. They’d needed it so bad and we had so much of it. The shrill sound of frantic barking had filled my ears, and I’d wanted to turn around and run. The only reason I hadn’t was because I knew he wouldn’t chase me. He’d let me get lost in the woods, without so much as a blink.
“So you know we can’t adopt any of those animals. Now, I need you to see them, look them in the eye, and walk away from them. Can you do that for me, Edie?” Jordan had squatted to my eye-level, smiling. Behind him there’d been a volunteer wearing a green shirt with the name of the shelter and a peculiar, too-wide smile.
No.
“Y-yes.”
We’d spent nearly an hour and a half strolling through the kennels staring at begging, pleading, distressed dogs and cats. I’d had to look each of them in the eye before I moved to the next crate. The volunteer who’d joined us on the tour had thought it was odd, my father never specifying what he was looking for in a pet. She’d been oblivious to the thing that was made crystal clear to me that day: He wasn’t looking to adopt, but he definitely did want a pet. He wanted to make me his tamed, trained puppet.
