Eliza Thomas

Word Count 1124

When Lily was just a few months old, I was splitting up with my boyfriend. I was lost in my late thirties. My boyfriend had determination, vision, discipline, and a five-year plan. He used the words “productive” and “time-management” to describe his daily schedule.

I did not understand those words. I had no plans, no vision. Only a small puppy. One day we were sitting in the kitchen of my apartment, re-hashing our differences. David practiced three hours every morning, on his way to a shining career as a pianist. My piano was neglected in the living room. He saw life as a progression of steps towards a clear set of goals, and I saw nothing clearly.

The afternoon light slanted onto the chipped linoleum tiles. It was early spring, and the warmth of those rays must have attracted Lily. She wandered about and chose a single, sunny tile -- she was so small then that her entire body fit on only one. She started to dig, industrious and purposeful, scattering imaginary clumps off to the sides. When her bed was made, she turned around a few times and flopped down for a nap. We watched her together.

“I thought that’s what you wanted too,” David said at last, his voice distant and disappointed. “A place in the sun.”

For once, I thought I understood. I looked around at the shabby room, I considered the disarray of my life. I looked down at my new puppy, satisfied with her efforts. She made it look so easy.

***

I bought Lily from a disreputable pet store in a suburban mall. She lay in a grimy cage with her head between her paws, deeply depressed. We’re made for each other, I thought, staring at her through the wire mesh. The ambitious store clerk was alert. “She’s on sale,” he said. I paid far too much for my mangy puppy-mill black spaniel. She threw up in the car on the way home.

I didn't have much of a home to offer. A run-down apartment in a run-down triple-decker in a seedy neighborhood, managed by a landlady who despised animals. A meager income from a dead-end office job that I was terrible at. A dead-end relationship with a brilliant musician, about to end. And now, my first dog, acquired on an irresponsible impulse. I had no idea how to deal with a tiny puppy.

But that was 13 years ago. Lily was desperate to get out of that cage, and I was desperate for a new start. We found each other, and then we grew up together. It's as simple as that.

Early on, I taught my puppy the elementary commands -- sit, come, stay -- while she taught me the patience of love. I say this without a trace of self-consciousness. I adjusted my schedule to care for her, and combed the city for dog-friendly parks. We adjusted to each other's moods, enduring periods of manic exercise, jogging three times a week, and extended times of companionable gloom, two naps a day. I clung to her when my father was dying, and when I quit my terrible office job, and when I moved us to a cabin in the countryside of Vermont. We explored our new world, climbed small mountains and discovered swimming holes, and learned about ticks. She came with me to work when I began teaching piano and accompanying. After several more years, and with a lot of help from a good friend, I added onto the cabin enough room to welcome a child. Lily met me at the airport when I brought home my exuberant, wonderful baby girl born in China. I feel lucky. I am lucky. I've landed on my feet, more or less, and see things more clearly.

And anywhere I look, I see Lily, my constant support through so many changes, my stubborn companion through thick and thin. She is old and gray-muzzled now, with a lumpy, disheveled dignity that I call beauty. We lean against each other on the sofa, and she still digs herself a place anywhere nearby: under the kitchen table, in the passenger seat of the car, near the pedals of my piano, on my bed. Strangers think she is neurotic -- all that scrabbling, all that futility -- but I understand. I am home to her, and I can't begin to imagine home without her.

But recently, she began fainting, and the vet informed me that her heart is failing. It could be a week, he said, or it could even be months; dogs are individual, he said, and left it at that. He gave me pills for her and warned me not to hope for much. Sometimes I think back to that afternoon with David. If I’d had a vision then, a thirteen-year plan, it would not have included this.

Lily makes her way across the floor. She weaves about and chooses her spot. Laborious, unsteady, my old dog digs and digs and then lies down beside me. It's okay, I tell myself, even though it isn't. She is teaching me how to die.

         ***

A month later, the vet calls to tell me Lily's ashes are ready to collect. I drop my daughter off at preschool, give her a big long hug, and drive to his office. The receptionist hands me a plastic jar about six inches high. “Is that all there is?” I say, just like the old Peggy Lee song, and with a burst of inappropriate laughter, I stumble out to the car.

I have no idea how to deal with this. The winter rays filter through the small windows of the cabin, and there are empty places everywhere. Carrying the jar, I walk around the house, through my bedroom, my daughter’s bedroom, the piano studio. I wander through the hall, in and out of the living room, into the kitchen, hunting for the right spot.

Maybe it doesn't really matter where. Maybe one spot is as good as another. Maybe Lily always knew this.

I’m down on all fours now, scrabbling away at the linoleum with my bare hands, pushing awkwardly at imaginary clumps. Not an easy task. Nothing happens at the surface, no shallow nest appears. Maybe Lily always knew this too. Maybe going through the motions is what counts. I get to my feet, take a handful from the jar and turn slowly around. Ashes sprinkle through my fingers and scatter in a wide circle, as delicate as dust. A place in the sun.

I do not ask if all that digging, all that scattering serves any purpose. I do not flop down and take a nap. I just stand there in the middle of the kitchen, looking down.

*

Eliza is a piano teacher and accompanist. In a former life she published a short memoir, “The Road Home" and a children’s picture book, “The Red Blanket”. That was ages ago, however. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont with her dog Mario and recent puppy Olivia.