Сигрид Нуньес - The Friend

It’s a shame, Hector says. Such a beautiful animal. I’m very sorry.

It’s not your fault.

To prove that I don’t blame him, I plan to give him a bigger tip this Christmas than I gave him last year.

I can’t tell for sure whether Apollo likes to be massaged or is just tolerating it. But I keep it up, getting him to lie first on one side then on the other, pausing for a chest rub in between. The chest rub is what he seems to like best. He doesn’t like having his paws touched, though the brat in me keeps trying.

He has grown used to his new home, and to me. Except when I have to be at school, I don’t leave him alone. Apart, he is always on my mind and I am anxious to get back to him. He greets me at the door (has he been by the door the whole time?), but with a drowning look that says it hasn’t been easy, the waiting. (How good is his memory? If very good, as dogs’ memories are said to be, what grief being locked up alone might bring him. And—heart-shredding thought—is it still for you that he waits by the door?)

His tail moves side to side, a wag for sure, but a wistful one. Never happy tail, the furious whipping back and forth for which Great Danes are known (to the extent that injuries to the tail and damage to household objects are common: the reason many owners choose docking).

The air mattress is back in the closet. Not end of story. He has never again growled at me, and when I say Down I don’t usually have to say it twice. Still, the bed is where he wants to be, especially at night. (I tried getting him to consider the air mattress a dog bed but it didn’t work.) Despite what the vet had said, I didn’t see the necessity of banishing him from the bed completely. After all, plenty of people allow their dogs on the bed. Some even place a special blanket at the foot of the bed for the dog to sleep on. If Apollo was a toy poodle curled up on a special blanket at the foot of the bed, it would be nothing extraordinary. Why is it different when the dog is the size of a man and stretched out with his head on his own pillow? I acknowledge that it is. But let me say this: When you’re lying in bed full of night thoughts, such as why did your friend have to die and how much longer will it be before you lose the roof over your head, having a huge warm body pressed along the length of your spine is an amazing comfort.

He knows all the commands.

One night after a long bad day—lost cell phone, listless class, failed attempt to get back to writing—Apollo stirs, starts leaving the bed, and I find myself saying, Stay .

Certain friends, I’ve noticed, are avoiding me, I can’t help thinking at least partly because they’re afraid some day soon I’ll show up at their door with Apollo and a suitcase.

The friend who is most sympathetic about my situation calls to ask how I am. I tell him about trying music and massage to treat Apollo’s depression, and he asks if I’ve considered a therapist. I tell him I’m skeptical about pet shrinks, and he says, That’s not what I meant.

End of semester. I tell my family I can’t travel to be with them this Christmas. During the monthlong break before teaching resumes, I’ll hardly ever have to be apart from Apollo. Even in coldest weather, we go out and we walk and walk. We like cold weather. We like the city in winter. More room on the sidewalks. Fewer gawkers. And when it’s freezing Apollo isn’t as likely to stop for one of his rests.

Final warning from the building management office. It occurs to me I might try talking to the landlord. Who’s to say the man’s a heartless prick and not the very soul of compassion? Why not a Christmas miracle! At the very least I could beg him for time.

I call the managing agent and ask for the landlord’s number in Florida.

We don’t give out that number, he says.

Twelve authors—six men and six women—have posed nude for a photo wall calendar. The email invitation urges me not to miss this exclusive offer: a limited edition of copies signed by each author now available for presale.

Jolted to recall a panel discussion at which someone raised the topic of dignity and its diminished place in the literary world. Watch, you said, it’ll be nude author photos next. How you sat with a face of stone while everyone else in the room laughed.

New Year’s Eve. I stay home and watch, hardly for the first time, It’s a Wonderful Life . I don’t open the bottle of champagne that a student has sent to thank me for writing a letter of recommendation for the thirty-plus MFA programs she is applying to this year.

The friend who is most sympathetic about my situation organizes an intervention. The following week: a barrage of calls and messages from various people, some of whom I haven’t heard from in years.

They don’t want to see me lose my home. They want me to come to my senses before it’s too late. I need a better way to cope with my feelings of loss and guilt. I need bereavement therapy. Here are some names. I should think about medication. Here’s what worked for them. There are books. There are websites. There are support groups. Healing won’t come from withdrawing into a fantasy world, isolating myself, spending all my time with a dog. There is such a thing as pathological grief. There is the magical thinking of pathological grief, which is a kind of dementia. Which in their collective opinion is what I have.

Generous offers of all kinds are made, though no one volunteers to take the dog.

Then Wife Two, of all people, does just that: I have a little grandson who adores dogs. He’ll be thrilled with one big enough to ride.

That would have solved everything, says Wife One.

I say you would never forgive me. And was it not suspicious, Wife Two even making such an offer.

“What do you mean? I thought she was just trying to help.”

“Help? This woman who’s always hated me, almost as much as she hates you. I would never trust her. Just remember what that marriage was like: all rage and bitterness and resentment. I wouldn’t trust Apollo anywhere near her.”

Women are dangerous, they stop at nothing and they never let go.

Wife One thinks I’m being paranoid. But in fact it’s far from unheard of: people taking out their revenge against some person on that person’s helpless child or pet.

You would never forgive me.

“So what are you going to do? You can’t just sit around waiting for a miracle.”

But that is what I am waiting for.

Advice often given to writers: read your drafts out loud. Advice I am usually too lazy to follow. But I will try anything these days that might keep me longer at my desk. I pick up the pages I’ve just printed out and start reading. Behind me I hear Apollo, who has been sleeping behind the couch, heave himself to his feet. He trots to the desk (we are about eye to eye when I’m sitting) and stares at me as if I’m doing something remarkable. Or maybe, though we’ve had one long walk already today, he wants to go out again.

When I reach the bottom of the page I pause, thinking. Apollo pokes me with his nose. He barks, very low, just once. He takes a step forward, a step to the right, a step back, all the while cocking his head from side to side: his way of saying WTF.

He wants me to keep reading! True or not, that’s what I do. But soon I stop.

Read your sentences out loud, goes the advice, and you’ll hear what doesn’t sound right, what doesn’t work. I hear, I hear. What doesn’t sound right, what doesn’t work. I hear .