Lily King - The English Teacher

She could endure it no further. Finally she gave her legs the unambiguous signal to stand and they carried her off the bleachers, back along the narrow sidelines, and down the fire stairwell to the parking lot, where she sat in her car with her tingling chest for the remaining twenty minutes.

But removing herself from the scene, putting a windowless wall of concrete between her and Peter, didn’t prevent her from seeing him. His feet were fast; he had no trouble getting free of an opponent. He would be darting in and out of the key, always open, gently calling to the teammate with the ball, “With you, with you,” his eager arms out and ready, always ready. His hair would have fallen over his eyes but he wouldn’t brush it away, wanting to keep his arms out for the pass. His mouth would have that desperate, beseeching shape to it as it became clear to him that his teammate was stalling, dribbling in place, until someone more reliable broke free.

He was the very last boy to emerge from the locker room. He walked out well behind Jason and a few others. And it was only at that moment, when she did not feel the urge to tell those boys to include him, that she realized how angry she was that he was in cahoots with Tom.

Without a word, he opened the door, kicked down his knapsack to make room for his feet, and breathed flatulently through his nose. She did not, as she had done every day since he started pre-kindergarten, ask him about his day. She did not offer him a greeting at all; she simply turned left out of the school driveway and headed fearlessly toward the great test of her character they had plotted together.

Like any decent protagonist, she would pass it. But that, she told herself, did not in any way mean they would have won or gotten the better of her.

By the time they reached Larch Street, their silence was no longer tentative but an established fact. As they approached the house, Vida saw that Tom’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet, which meant hers would be blocked in when he came home. Like the carpet cleaners, like gloomy Mrs. May, she parked alongside the curb. She could feel Peter wanting an explanation but she didn’t give it. They walked up the driveway single file.

From the smell of the house Vida knew that Fran and Caleb had snacked on raisin toast and Stuart had a girl in his room. She heard the window in his bedroom shudder shut; now the girl would be creeping off behind the house. Seemingly oblivious, Peter headed down the hall to his room, which would be thick with sex and incense.

She whistled for Walt. When he didn’t appear, she called, “Here, baby.” She thought she could hear his front paws scraping the floor of the kitchen, trying to get up, but the kitchen was empty. So was the backyard. She checked under the table and in the pantry. Her new bottle of bourbon, still three-quarters full, was there. Walt was not. Stuart had probably taken him into his room as some sort of seduction accessory, but she headed to her bedroom first. It was an unlikely place to find him. The room was dark, and it took her many seconds of stroking the wall to find the light switch. He was lying right in the spot where he had usually lain in their old house: beside her bed, waiting for her to wake up. Perhaps he’d been waiting there all day. Such a long awful day. She thought of the bourbon on the shelf. Just as she was about to call to him, she saw that his head was at an odd angle against his right paw. For a moment she thought it was another dog, some sort of prank of Stuart’s, some misunderstanding, some confusion in the universe. She crouched beside him and swung his head, his beautiful head, on her knees.

He was stiff, even his hair felt stiff, but she knew she could pull him back. She heard herself crooning in his ear, luring him home with sounds that weren’t her words but new words, a sort of dog talk, like in her dreams about him, that she was finally fluent in. He would listen. He’d always done anything she told him to. Such an easier child than Peter, never recalcitrant, never moody. Walt was her best friend, her partner, her lover. She heard him laugh. Don’t laugh, she told him in their language; it’s true. You are my love, my deepest love. She began to laugh with him. She pressed her face to his, though his eyes were looking off toward the nightstand. Didn’t you know that, baby? Didn’t you know? I found you at a gas station. I rescued you. And you rescued me. We drove across the country together, just you and me. What would I have done without you? Where would I have gone?

She was still trying to coax some movement out of him when she felt a hand on her shoulder. At first she thought it was Brick, asking her to have another talk.

“He’s gone, honey. He’s gone.”

“He’s just so tired.”

“He’s dead.” He said it as if he enjoyed the word.

“Please, just go get Peter.”

Peter stood several feet back. “What happened?”

Vida wanted to raise her head and reach for him, pull him down beside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of Walt’s head.

“What happened to him?”

From far off, Tom said, “He was old and in pain. His heart probably just gave way.”

She felt Peter’s fingers on her back briefly. “I’m sorry, Ma.” That’s all he said. He did not squat down with her, mourn with her.

He left. After a while Tom left, too. She thought of the bourbon on the shelf. She continued to talk to Walt in their language. She wanted to cry but he wouldn’t like it. She shut his eyes and stroked the velvety fur of his eyelids. She apologized again and again for not having been home, not having been on her bed when he came in to find her, to spend his last minutes with her, his only love. He had never warmed to Peter. Peter had never loved him. They’d never had that boy-dog thing.

Occasionally there were voices behind her. “He was a nice dog,” she heard Fran say.

“He’s finding his new form now,” Stuart said. “Something more elegant and powerful.”

He’s perfect the way he is. She didn’t know if she’d said this out loud. She caressed the length of Walt’s body, her hands remembering how strong it once had been.

Tom stood at the door and spoke of dinner. Later it was Peter, urging her in to eat. But she was so tired. Maybe it was time for her to die, too. She was so very tired. She could hear them at the table, clattering, chattering. All their voices chittering along, while she sat on aching knees with her dead dog. I need a goddamn drink, she told Walt. If she’d married Brick they’d have a minibar in the bedroom.

Then they were all there, surrounding her with their platitudes and garlic breath. Tom had, of course, formulated a plan.

“He needs to be buried. We could call the vet or we could just bury him here.”

“Here?” Fran said, disgusted.

Tom shushed her. “Which would you like to do, Vida?”

“I just want to pat him.”

“We can have a little ceremony. I’m going to start digging a grave out back.”

“You can’t do that,” Fran screamed as if expecting this all along. “Not in my mother’s garden.”

“To the side, near the compost.”

“You’ll break all the roots of her lilacs. You will.”

“I won’t. I’ll be careful.”

Fran followed him out of the room. “It’s just a dog, Daddy.”

Vida wanted to scream at her, but Walt told her to not to bother.

In a few minutes she heard them in the back, rummaging through the shed, calling out to each other, laughing.

“That’s a snow shovel, you dingbat.”

“We should rig flashlights up on our foreheads like coal miners.”

“How much do you think grave diggers make an hour?”

They were all outside.

She placed Walt’s head carefully down on the carpet. Neither of her legs could hold her weight so she leaned on the bed, then the doorknob until she could get herself down the hallway alone. The bourbon in the pantry was gone.