Ian’s on the sofa, working on his laptop, when I walk in the door. He thinks Natalie and I went shopping in Georgetown. Look at him, sitting there in that disgusting sweatshirt, growing duller and more middle-aged by the minute.
“Not unless you count an oat milk cappuccino,” I say, bending to unlace my sneakers. “We only made a couple stops, mostly so Natalie could return some things.”
“I’m still glad you got out for a little while. I was really worried about you yesterday.”
I’d like to put my fist through the earnestness smeared across his face. This is what they mean when they say marriage is hard work.
“I think I’m allowed one day to wallow, don’t you?” I say. “Especially after everything you’ve put me through this week?”
His expression turns wounded. “Of course you are. But I’m relieved you’ve bounced back so well this time. I thought you’d be in bed all weekend.”
“I’m not crazy.” I head into the kitchen for a glass of water. “I told you I knew it was a long shot. All I wanted was to give it our best try, and now we have.”
“I’m just impressed, that’s all.” He refocuses on the computer screen. “I was feeling a little guilty about having to go to Pittsburgh again for the river case on Monday.”
“Oh,that’swhat you feel guilty about?”
He sighs, his eyes finding me again. “Sorry, I…” He stops himself, shakes his head. “You know what I mean.”
Has he always been such a fucking idiot?
Fritter is waiting by the door when I let myself into Natalie’s apartment. She will have only left for the bar twenty minutes ago, so he hasn’t had much of a chance to settle down yet.
“Hi, good boy!” I say, kissing the top of his head, since I don’t think his usual ear scratch will feel very good with latex-gloved fingers. “I know, I’m early, right? I just need to take a little look around, and then we’ll get going, okay?”
He stays dutifully by my side as I head into the bedroom, a scruffy black-and-white barnacle.
Blossom was the exact same way.
She slept with me every night, burrowing under the covers and pushing into my hip, even though it was summer and we didn’t have air conditioning. She was smart like Fritter, too. At first, she would bark every time someone came home, but she could tell it made me anxious. I would tense up each time she did it, shushing her with a finger to my mouth. My worst fear was that a neighbor would rat us out to the landlord. But it only took a couple days for Blossom to catch on. After that, whenever someone came to the door, she’d look at me, her brown eyes silently promising that she wouldn’t ruin the good thing we had going.
My mom couldn’t bring herself to ruin it, either. Once two weeks had gone by, we told my dad that my friend’s family vacation had been extended indefinitely. They’d gone to visit Grandma in Palm Springs, we explained, and found out she was sick, so theyhad to stay and take care of her. After all those years with my dad, my mom was an expert at coming up with these kinds of stories to appease him—half-truths, she called them, even though they often weren’t true at all.
Even he seemed to be growing attached to Blossom. She was impossible not to love, cuddling up with whoever was on the couch. I’d taught her to “shake”—she was so eager to learn tricks—and she’d taken to offering a paw for a treat whenever she saw an opening. You would’ve had to have been a monster to resist. I didn’t yet know that my dad was one.
Blossom was so well behaved that I’d stopped worrying about school starting. We would miss each other terribly, but my mom and I thought she could handle spending the day in my bedroom. We’d asked the salespeople at Petco for any tips that might help. They’d suggested chew toys to entertain her, and pee pads so she could do her business in an emergency without making a mess.
The night before the first day of fourth grade, I held Blossom extra close in my bed, whispering to her that we both had to be brave in the morning, but that I’d be home before she knew it. We’d go for a walk in the afternoon, I promised, then I would give her the new peanut butter treats that we’d bought for the occasion.
My mom helped me set up my room for her in the morning with everything she’d need. I gave her a big hug and a kiss. She tilted her fuzzy charcoal-gray head, puzzling out what was happening, as I backed away and closed the door.
The school day crawled by, I could hardly think of anything other than her. That afternoon, I sat in the very front row of the bus, so when it pulled up to my stop, I could be the first one off. I bolted down the steps, past Alyssa’s mom with the Capri-Sun, and ran the whole way to our townhouse complex. But when I got to my bedroom, I found the door wide open. Blossom was gone.
As usual, I was the only one home. My parents were both still at work, and Mitch had gone to a friend’s. I searched the townhouse,throwing open every door, every kitchen cupboard, every closet. It seemed impossible that she would’ve escaped on her own, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I combed the whole complex, calling her name, shaking around the bag of peanut butter treats. Once I was home from school, I wasn’t supposed to leave the parking lot without permission, but when I still couldn’t find her, I went out into the neighborhood and wandered the streets for hours. Alyssa Sato was on her tire swing, sucking on a Popsicle, when I passed, tears dripping from my chin. She asked if I wanted her to go inside and get her mom. I really did, but I was too ashamed to say so.
When I finally got back to the townhouse, the sun was setting and my dad had returned from his shift at the hardware store.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked.
“Looking for Blossom,” I said, my face swollen from crying.
“Didn’t you see that her leash was gone?”
I’d felt embarrassed then. As if a panicked nine-year-old should’ve had the good sense to check the stick-on hook by the door.
“She’s not coming back,” he said, pretending to sort through a stack of mail on the kitchen counter, so he wouldn’t have to look at me.
I probably knew by then, deep down, that my dad wasn’t a good man. But this was the moment when that fact became undeniable.
