The fur ball on a leash haunts the campus all week. He sits tall with a narrow, proud chest. Crouching down, i know he won’t be little for long as giant puppy-soft paws reach up to rest on my arm.
One ear points up. The other flops down. The beauty mark on his left cheek matches mine. Melting chocolate eyes and a guttural whine says we’re both stuck in houses that aren’t homes.
“I need to find him a new home.” the guy offers an invitation backlit by the sun.
“What’s his name?” i ask, but I’ve already named him after the dog in the Sublime songs my mom used to blast on the radio.
That Friday evening i ask Mom:
“Can i get a puppy?”
“It’s not a good time. Maybe next year?” Mom’s rushing around the kitchen preparing dinner. The jerk sits at the table ignoring us. i can’t believe she married him after five years of off and on drama.
Her fragile marriage. This stupid house. The stress of dinner. All useless efforts.
Monday, i tumble Lou-Dog through the front door, nails clacking on the
The jerk meets me midway to the kitchen and says no, his hands loose, like a boxer, at his side.
“If he goes, i go,” i snap and step around him to the back door with my trotting puppy.
The house muffles the low grumbles as i start bathing the puppy. They end when Mom drips outside, slippery with fatigue, and Lou leaps into her arms trying to get away from me and the hose.
“He’s full of fleas,” i warn.
She holds him closer.
“You’ll have to keep him in the garage until the fleas die,” she says. They shiver together, her pressed blouse and slacks now soaked.
I can’t leave Lou-Dog alone in the cold garage. He tracks my every move with his eyes, and his ears twist and turn like antennae, so i lay next to him on the nest of blankets Mom brought for us on the cold concrete.
“If we let her keep him, she might start liking you.” Mom attempts to jest with the jerk. i listen to them argue through the walls. Lou curls his back against my stomach, comforting me like hot soup.
“I don’t care if she doesn’t like me,” he responds and voices rise.
The jerk’s harsh tenor quenches the flood of Mom’s rolling worries and failing persuasions. “She won’t actually run away. Call her bluff.”
I imagine her face in this moment: the indignation coaxing color to tired cheeks and fire to weary eyes.
Lou-dog's ribs stick out and stretch his skin with each breath. We need him as much as he needs us.
Despite the 21st century, her college degree, and her career, he says with some kind of borrowed authority: “I said no puppies. The discussion is over.”
I bury my smile in Lou-dog's soft fur. i know the ultimatum the jerk's about to spew next, and i know my mom. All of us will soon be free.
I remember two white socks pulled up to my knees and two black shiny shoes. i had three scratches on my lower thigh from the neighbor’s cat. My mom’s denim-clad legs and two tan working boots stood beside me.
A flag pole rose out of an expanse of asphalt. Six basketball hoops in the distance bordered a field. A million blades of wild grass shone yellow-gold in the few rays of sunlight breaking through the canopy of dense faraway fog. Children stirred and all of them had two big eyes, but I focused on my two white socks in my two black shoes.
The bell rang twice and we were asked to form one line.
My chest heaved once, twice, three times. i felt maybe prickles behind my eyes. Panic rose in my chest, ready to burst in my throat. i turned my face up to my mom’s and she had a faraway smile. i was her fifth daughter and she probably couldn’t wait for the four quiet hours ahead of her. Three strands of sleek black hair fell from her low ponytail and curled around her, jaw highlighting the mole on the side of her cheek near her mouth. She had two moles, but i could only see one.
I felt that i may never see her again. i worked hard to memorize the thousand and thirty-six details of her face. Five pearlescent buttons in her shirt disappeared into the top of her jeans.
One girl with two yellow ribbons in her frizzy hair tossed herself to the floor at her mother’s feet. What kind of shoes was her mother wearing? i don’t recall, but i remember the girl’s tears seemed countless. Her mother bent over and tried to untangle her daughter from her legs.
The teacher in a long brown skirt stomped over and grabbed the girl, pulling her toward the others. the girl fought her with all four limbs as though she was trying to escape a kidnapping. Her face was three shades of red lighter than my favorite crayon, which was always fifth in the box, after black, grey, white and brown.
My panic receded, about nine levels with this shameless display of hysteria. i pulled my shoulders back and walked to the line. i gave my mom five waves of my hand and she blew two kisses. i looked at the three girls in front of me, who stared at each other and the crying girl intermittently. We shared four nervous smiles, relieved that it was not us making the scene.
The girl in front of me had three missing teeth, two on the bottom and one on the top. She pulled out her pencil box and showed me seven sharpened pencils with pretty pastel rainbow erasers. Her pencils smelled like bubblegum. My pencils -- i think i only had two — were not sharp and even my crayons were used, so i kept my pencil bag in one of the four pockets of my backpack.
my countdown was done. We marched forward single file.
Eggs no toast. Do you have any idea what it is like to eat eggs without toast? Pretty darn lame. The only decadence she allowed herself was cream – real cream, not half and half, or milk, but real true thick and creamy cream – in her coffee. She watched it swirl through the darkness. She never stirred, just let it rise to the top, where she could sip the coffee through it. One sip at a blessed time, savoring each one.
Then her egg. Salted, drizzled with some olive oil and nothing else but dark, forbidden fantasies of butter and jam spread out wantonly all over lusty toast. You had to give up an entire food group with every decade. This she knew. And this decade was the decade of bread. Last one had been milk and cheese and the one before had been dessert. This she knew, but it did little to help her with the issue at hand. She gazed at it there on the counter. a beautiful pastry covered with sugared almonds, curving around itself, ready to share, to please, to bring her some form of culinary satisfaction in a world of eggs without toast – and one that may any day become a world of coffee without cream. God forbid the day!
She held a cup of steaming water years later, spooning off mint flakes floating on the surface. she took a sip, remembering the taste of coffee with cream.
you were once small In my body, nauseating me, you stretched my skin with scars,
you pulled wisps of my hair as you drank my milk,
your tear-filled eyes reflected countless sunrises.
Your wails disturbed my dreams, my tasks, my goals that
Shifted and twisted in the rich silk of your dark curls,
In the tight grasp of your sweaty fist.
you were once young
In my early morning sheets,
The music of your giggles floated down the hall.
In my kitchen i nourished your body and flamed your dreams.
Retellings of cartoons, books, schoolyard drama competed with traffic on the way to your ballet.
In my vanity mirror i combed your tangled tresses through screeching tantrums,
Washed your smudged hands spread wide and high to bring down the sky.
My work, my conversations, my romances
Succumbed to the tenderness of
your sticky berry kisses.
you were once mine
In my cold-sweat nightmares,
my eyes on the high pale moon,
In my ears your car brakes, the jingle of the front door, your footsteps down the hall Tall and proud.
warmth beneath your thick eye lashes and rolling eyes hidden from
My love, my wisdom, my longing muffled in your grumbles that
Echo off the empty walls of my womb with unshared solutions blocked by the
Streaming sound of
your radio, your online chats, your slammed bedroom door.
now you are gone.
Ache of uninterrupted evenings and stale lack of your demands,
Phantom pain of your absence
All too soon.
My child. My daughter.
You’re grown. You’re yours.