Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

Once, after hearing Jacob recount an example of Julia’s subtle belittling, Dr. Silvers said, “Most people behave badly when wounded. If you can remember the wounds, it is far more possible to forgive the behavior.”

Julia was in the bath when he’d come home that night. He tried — with gentle knocking, calling into the room, and unnecessarily loud shuffling — to make her aware of his presence, but the water was too loud, and opening the door, he startled her. After catching her breath, and laughing at her fear, she rested her chin on the tub’s lip. They listened to the water together. A seashell brought to the ear becomes an echo chamber for one’s circulatory system. The ocean you hear is your own blood. The bathroom that night was an echo chamber for their shared life. And behind Julia, where the towels and hanging robe should have been, Jacob saw a painted landscape, a flat forever occupied by a school, a soccer field, the Whole Foods bulk section (a grid of plastic bins filled with painted split peas and brown rice, dried mango and raw cashews), a Subaru and a Volvo, a home, their home, and through a second-story window there was a room, so tiny and precisely painted, only a Master could have made it, and on a table in that room, which became her office once there was no more need for a nursery, was an architectural model, a house, and in that house in that house in the house in which life happened was a woman, carefully positioned.

* * *

Finally, the vet came. She wasn’t what Jacob was anticipating, or hoping for: some gentle, gentile, grandfather figure. To begin with, she was a she. In Jacob’s experience, vets were like airplane pilots: virtually always male, gray (or graying), and calming. Dr. Shelling looked too young to buy Jacob a drink — not that the situation would ever arise — was fit, firm, and wearing what appeared to be a tailored lab coat.

“What brings you here today?” she asked, riffling through Argus’s chart.

Did Max see what Jacob saw? Was he old enough to pay any attention? To be embarrassed?

“He’s been having some problems,” Jacob said, “probably just normal stuff for a dog of his age: incontinence, some joint issues. Our previous vet — Dr. Hazel at Animal Kind — put him on Rimadyl and Cosequin, and said we should consider adjusting the dosage if things didn’t improve. They didn’t improve, and we doubled the dosage, and added a dementia pill, but nothing happened. So I thought we’d seek another opinion.”

“OK,” she said, putting down the clipboard. “And this dog has a name?”

“Argus,” Max offered.

“Great name,” she said, lowering herself onto a knee.

She held the sides of Argus’s face, and looked into his eyes while she stroked his head.

“He’s in pain,” Max said.

“He has occasional discomfort,” Jacob clarified. “But it’s not constant, and it’s not pain.”

“Are you in pain?” Dr. Shelling asked Argus.

“He whines when he gets up and down,” Max said.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“But he’ll also whine if we don’t drop enough popcorn during movies,” Jacob said. “He’s a catholic whiner.”

“Can you think of other times he whines out of discomfort?”

“Again, almost all of his whining is for food or a walk. But that’s not pain, or even discomfort. Just desire.”

“He whines when you and Mom fight.”

“That’s Mom’s whining,” Jacob said, trying to relieve the shame he felt in front of the veterinarian.

“Does he get enough walks?” she asked. “He shouldn’t be whining for a walk.”

“He gets a lot of walks,” Jacob said.

“Three,” Max said.

“A dog of Argus’s age needs five walks. At least.”

“Five walks a day?” Jacob asked.

“And the pain you’ve witnessed. For how long has it been going on?”

“Discomfort,” Jacob corrected. “ Pain is too strong a word.”

“A long time,” Max said.

“Not that long. Maybe half a year?”

“It’s gotten bad in the last half a year,” Max said, “but he’s been whining since Benjy was like three.”

“Same could be said of Benjy.”

The vet looked into Argus’s eyes for another few moments, now in silence. Jacob wanted to be looked at like that.

“OK,” she said. “Let’s take a temperature, I’ll check his vitals, and if it feels right, we can do some blood work.”

She pulled a thermometer from a glass bottle on the counter, squeezed some lube onto it, and positioned herself behind Argus. Did it thrill Jacob? Did it depress him? It depressed him. But why? Because of Argus’s stoicism whenever this happened? How it reminded him of his own unwillingness, or inability, to show discomfort? No, it had to do with the vet — her youthful beauty (she seemed to be reverse-aging as the visit progressed), but more, her tender care. She inspired fantasizing in Jacob, but not about a sexual encounter. Not even about her guiding in a suppository. He imagined her pressing a stethoscope to his chest; her fingers gently exploring the glands of his neck; how she would extend and bend his arms and legs, listening for the difference between discomfort and pain with the closeness and quietness and care of someone trying to crack a safe.

Max got down on a knee, placed his face in front of Argus’s, and said, “That’s my boy. Look at me. There you go, boy.”

“OK,” she said, removing the thermometer. “A little high, but within the healthy range.”

She then ran her hands over Argus’s body, examining the insides of his ears, lifting his lip to look at the teeth and gums, pressing Argus’s belly, rotating his thigh until he whined.

“Sensitive on that leg.”

“He had both of his hips replaced,” Max said.

“Total hip replacements?”

Jacob shrugged.

“The left was a femoral head osteotomy,” Max said.

“That’s an interesting choice.”

“Yeah,” Max went on, “he was on the border in terms of weight, and the vet thought we could spare him the THR. But it was a mistake.”

“Sounds like you were paying pretty close attention.”

“He’s my dog,” Max said.

“OK,” she said, “he’s obviously got some tenderness. Probably a bit of arthritis.”

“He’s been pooping in the house for about a year,” Max said.

“Not a year,” Jacob corrected.

“Don’t you remember Sam’s slumber party?”

“Right, but that was unusual. It didn’t become a consistent problem until several months after that.”

“And is he also urinating in the house?”

“Mostly just defecating,” Jacob said, “some peeing more recently.”

“Does he still squat to poop? Often it’s really an arthritic problem, rather than an intestinal or rectal one — the dog can no longer assume the position, and so poops while walking.”

“He often poops while walking,” Jacob said.

“But sometimes he’ll poop in his bed,” Max said.

“As if he doesn’t realize he’s pooping,” the vet suggested. “Or simply has no control.”

“Right,” Max said. “I don’t know if dogs get embarrassed, or sad, but.”

Jacob received a text from Julia: made it to the hotel.

“We’ll never know,” the vet said, “but it definitely doesn’t sound pleasant.”

That’s it? Jacob thought. Made it to the hotel? As if to a tolerated colleague, or the most minimal communication required to satisfy a legal obligation. And then he thought, Why does she always give me so little? And that thought surprised him, not just the flash flood of anger it rode in on, but how comfortable it felt — and that word, always —despite his never before having consciously thought it. Why does she always give me so little? So little of the benefit of the doubt. So few compliments. Such rare appreciation. When was the last time she didn’t stifle a laugh at one of his jokes? When did she last ask to read what he was working on? When did she last initiate sex? So little to live off. He’d behaved badly, but only after a decade of wounds from arrows too blunt to get the job done.