Lily And The Octopus Part 4

"In all honesty, I would make that decision now. She'll already be under anesthesia for the myelogram, and if it does indeed reveal a ruptured disc, it's best to perform the surgery right then and there."

"So you need a decision now."

The doctor looks at her watch. "Yes."

Decisions. Lately they're not my strong suit. I think of the ways recently in which I've felt paralyzed myself. Should I quit my job to freelance full-time as a writer? Should I talk to Jeffrey about the doubts I have in our relationship? About the suspicious text message he received? Could Lily and I start over again on our own?

"And how much does spinal surgery cost for a dog that is mostly spine?" The doctor crouches in front of me and offers a half-smile. She doesn't need to tell me things I already know: that this is always a risk with the breed. That purebred dogs come with these health issues, as they've been genetically mutated for purpose or show.

"All together, everything-anesthesia, myelogram, surgery, recovery-we're talking about six thousand dollars."

Now it's me who is left immobile. Six thousand dollars. I look at Jeffrey. I think of dwindling savings. Of having just paid off all my credit card debt. Of vacations that might not be taken, retirement accounts that won't get contributed to, of having to push my dreams of writing full-time back another year.

"It's your call," Jeffrey says. "I can't make this decision. She's your dog." Your dog.

I want to punch him. I want to punch everyone, except maybe the doctor who can save her.

"Why don't I leave you to talk it over for a moment?" The doctor stands, and before I know it I've grabbed the sleeve of her lab coat.

"She has a ball. It's red. Red ball. She loves it. She'll play with it for hours-tossing it, chasing it, hiding it, finding it. She'll play until she's out of breath, and even then she'll take it to her bed and fall asleep on top of it. She is alive when she's playing with that ball. If she . . ."

I can't even finish the words. Jeffrey places his hand on my shoulder as I'm reduced to tears again.

"If she can't . . . play with that ball anymore, then I don't know what kind of life there is left for her."

The doctor turns to me. She's not unmoved, but she's seen people wrestle with this decision before and there's nothing so special about me.

I continue through gasps and swallows of oxygen. "I don't want you to think I'm a horrible person. That I would let money even become a part of this decision. It's just I don't know what her life would be if she can't play with that ball."

I plead with my eyes. Fix her! Save her! One nod is all that I need, and she studies me before giving it. She has heard me, and she's trying to communicate something. "I'll be outside in the hall."

It's not even necessary for her to go. "Will you be the one performing the surgery?"

"Yes." Another nod. She's telling me Lily will walk again. She's telling me she knows this, but legally can't say it because of ridiculous reasons like malpractice insurance. So she's telling me without words, in the way that hostages blink secret messages in videotapes that evade detection by their captors.

I look at Jeffrey, who once again says, "I can't make this decision." At least this time he adds, "But I will stand by yours."

I look back at the doctor. My heartbeat is in my ears. The room is hot and smells like medicine. The fluorescents blink angrily, asking to be replaced. My head is spinning, but with adrenaline, not with dizzying thoughts. Now is when I have to start making decisions. Now is my time.

I stand tall with my hands by my sides and now I'm the one who speaks with authoritative command.

"Do it."

We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet for Auld Lang Syne We leave the animal hospital as soon as I agree to the surgery. They almost insist on it. Since it's New Year's Eve, they are running with a limited staff and don't want to a.s.sign any of their already spa.r.s.e resources to oversee a hysterical person in the waiting room. If the surgery goes well, they don't need me insisting on seeing her or overseeing her recovery. And I would. I would be like Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment: "It's past ten. My daughter is in pain. I don't understand why she has to have this pain. All she has to do is hold out until ten, and IT'S PAST TEN! My daughter is in pain, can't you understand that! GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!" If the surgery does not go well, I guess they don't want that scene to play out in their waiting room, either.

So we go home. Jeffrey stops to pick up Chinese for dinner and I stay in the car and call Trent. He is already at some New Year's party and I can't communicate the enormity of what is happening and I get frustrated and just hang up. Alone in the car, and without really thinking, I call my mother. While the phone rings, I think about how every conversation with her feels incomplete. About how we talk around the perimeter of things, but never about the things themselves. What will this call accomplish? Why do I still need my mother? As soon as I hear her voice I start crying, and I hate myself for it because if she's not going to give me what I need, then why bother to call her, being needy.

"Well, of course you're upset, she's your baby."

Huh? I'm not surprised that she offers sympathy, I am just surprised at the "of course." Growing up, we had four dogs. Not all at once, but over the course of eighteen years. None of them were my mother's babies; she had two human children and that was quite enough. The "of course" is all I need, and I no longer feel ashamed. Of course I'm upset. Of course I'm feeling lost. Of course I have emotions. She's my baby. Even my mother can see that.

When we finish speaking, I call Meredith. It's hard when talking to my mother not to spill the secret, not to share the added stress of having to attend a wedding, but I keep Meredith's confidence intact.

Meredith is wholly supportive. "We'll change your flights, have you on standby, get you a return flight home right after the ceremony-whatever you need us to do. And, of course, we'll cover any costs." Hearing Meredith's voice makes it easier. "But if you think you can, please come."

I pick at some General Tso's chicken and poke at a steamed dumpling, but I don't have much of an appet.i.te for anything other than vodka. We are supposed to be at a party thrown by our neighbors in the unit of our duplex above us; I send Jeffrey upstairs to give our regrets. The dull roar of the party is constant, and at times laughter bubbles over, reminding us that life is continuing outside of our anxiety, that seconds are ticking off the clock, marking the end of an old year and the start of a new one.

But in our apartment, time has stopped. There's maybe something playing on HBO. Even it seems to unspool in slow motion.

Until the phone rings.

I'm not even aware I've answered it until the doctor's voice is in my ear. "Lily came through surgery fine." I dry heave my relief. "The myelogram revealed compression of the spinal cord over the tenth through twelfth thoracic vertebrae. We took her directly into surgery and performed a hemilaminectomy over this area."

I'm nodding as if I understand exactly what this means. I'm nodding for someone who can't see me, trying to listen but also play back in my head the confirmation that all this went fine. I try to repeat hemilaminectomy in my head and it sounds like a child trying to p.r.o.nounce aluminum: alumi-numi-numi-num.

"Basically, we make an incision that creates a window into the vertebral bodies and exposes the spinal cord so we can retrieve the herniated disc material." Retrieve it and do what with it? "Lily's procedure went without complication and she recovered from the anesthesia uneventfully."

Uneventfully. Like being put under and myelograms and spine windows and alumi-numi-numi-num surgeries are everyday phenomena in life.

"Is she able to . . . Was the surgery a success?"

I am suddenly aware that I'm standing, as if the doctor has walked into our living room. I have no memory of getting up, and now that I am up, I'm unsure of where to look or what to do with my hand that is not holding the phone. The news is what I want to hear, but somehow I'm ice-cold, the warmth of the vodka having drained out of my limbs.

"Animals that suffer this type of injury make most of their neurologic improvement over the first three months postoperatively. You'll notice some immediate improvement, but don't be discouraged if Lily's progress is initially slow. But I'm cautiously optimistic."

"Cautiously optimistic that . . ." There's a hiccup of laughter from upstairs and I give a death-stare at the ceiling.

"Cautiously optimistic. That she will recover."

"Fully?"

"Cautiously optimistic."

Stop saying that. Will she walk?

"We need to board her here for the next seventy-two hours to monitor her initial recovery and watch for any signs of complications. Our offices are closed tomorrow for New Year's Day, which means you can visit her the day after if you want to. But only briefly. It's not good for her to get too excited. Otherwise, you can take her home the day after that."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"It was our pleasure working with Lily."

She's not getting what I'm trying to say.

"No." I say it with import. "Thank you."

I hang up the phone and collapse on the couch and relay to Jeffrey what I was told and when we can see her and when we can bring her home.

He looks at me, not quite knowing what to say. "I guess we have a wedding to attend."

I'm Afraid There's No Denyin'/I'm Just a Dandy-Lion EIGHT TIMES I WAS COWARDLY.

1 When I was five and my father told me to walk in a more masculine way and I was so immediately overcome with shame that I did.

2 That time in the seventh grade when this popular kid with a French last name called me a f.a.ggot and instead of standing up for myself I thought of how f.a.ggot would sound in French (f.a.g-oh) while wishing for the floor to swallow me whole.

3 When my parents divorced and people asked me about it and I pretended I was glad.

4 When this guy in high school performed oral s.e.x on me and I told him afterward that it was not a big deal because even though he might be gay, I was comfortable with my heteros.e.xuality.

5 Deciding not to major in creative writing because I thought that the broader and blander "communications" was the safer degree.

6 When I ended one relationship by becoming so distant and cold that after months of trying to reach me and discover what was wrong, he was left with no choice but to break up with me.

7 When I didn't immediately confront Jeffrey about the text message I'd seen.

8 Every time I don't tell my mother that I love her because I'm afraid she won't say it back.

AND ONE TIME I HAD COURAGE.

1 When I left Los Angeles for my sister's wedding, leaving Lily behind, boarded, in recovery, trusting her to heal.

The Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar I watch the low morning sun glimmer off the water as we take off over the Pacific; it's a short flight to San Francisco and we're still getting in on New Year's Day as planned. I ask the flight attendant for a ginger ale to pop an old pill I found in the bathroom drawer (which I'm hoping is Valium, but is probably Vicodin), otherwise I don't say a word. I'm grateful for my window seat. Normally I'm stuck in the middle, as Jeffrey refuses to sit anywhere but the aisle, but the flight to San Francisco is a smaller plane with only two seats in each row on either side of the walkway. If nothing else, I can stare out at the view below and not have to make eye contact with anyone. Eye contact is dangerous. Eye contact is a trigger.

When we land and I'm able to turn on my phone, I have two missed calls. The first is from Meredith, to see if we made our flight, and the second is the animal hospital calling to say that Lily has made it through the night and continues to exhibit good vitals. I listen to the second message four times for any hint that they are lying to me or glossing over an unpleasant truth, but I can't glean anything untoward and I end up not calling them back.

Meredith is waiting for us at baggage claim. She greets me with a hug, which I collapse into.

"You okay?" she whispers in my ear.

"Okay adjacent." I can be matter-of-fact with her, even today. We're only eighteen months apart, and while I sometimes joke that my first eighteen months were the best of my life, it's just that-a joke. "Did you call Mom?"

"We're eloping. Okay? If we invited everyone and made a big to-do it would be a wedding."

I don't know why there's a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach about this, but there is. Is Mom "everyone"? I tend to obsess over the ways in which our mother is like every other mother-and all of the ways that she isn't. "Okay." It's Meredith's decision.

"But I'm glad you're here!"

She and Franklin and Jeffrey and I manage lunch at a noodle house in Chinatown and check into our room at the Fairmont Hotel before I can't hold it inside any longer.

"I. Need. A. Drink."

It's almost five o'clock (if the give-or-take is three hours), and so we head down to the bar in the lobby. Some a.s.shole is playing annoyingly plinky ragtime on a grand piano, but my aggravation doesn't trump my thirst so I order a double vodka on the rocks. Meredith agrees to an impromptu bachelorette party, partly at my urging (a bachelorette party sounds like a good excuse to drink), as long as she doesn't have to wear a tiara or carry a p.e.n.i.s whistle or anything like that. I apologize to Franklin (he's not invited) and I call my friend Aaron, who now lives in San Francisco and who Meredith knows from years ago when we all lived in Maine. He agrees to join us for the revelry. Three gay men and a bride.

When Aaron arrives he's as handsome as ever (for some reason this is comforting-the beauty in life) and I fill him in on the Lily situation and the impromptu nature of both the wedding and this makeshift party.

"We all need some celebration and some fun," I say. The lobby bar is not fun.

"I know where we need to go," Aaron says, and he leads us to the elevator.

"We're already on the ground floor," Meredith offers. "The front door is that way."

"Shhh." He winks, taking Meredith's hand. "You and me-and I think they'll agree-are going down to the terrace level to take up residence in the Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar for tropical storms and Singapore slings."

Was that a poem? I wonder. It feels like he's using words from another language that I usually speak, but that now sounds foreign thanks to the double vodka and emotional exhaustion.

When the elevator dings, Aaron corrals us inside and presses the b.u.t.ton for the terrace level, and the car lurches and our stomachs dip as we head down.

The Tonga Room is squarely underneath the Fairmont Hotel, and the Hurricane Bar is a Polynesian-themed marvel situated around what must once have been the hotel's swimming pool but is now a lagoon, complete with a rain foreststyle thunderstorm every half hour. A barge floats on the lagoon, carrying a band that plays in between storms. The cane-and-rattan furniture and the tiki lights make it a tropical, tacky mess.

In short, it's perfect.

"Singapore slings for everyone!" I say.

Waiting for our drinks, I fidget endlessly with my phone as if the animal hospital will call. The battery is at 35 percent and I have only one bar of reception. It dawns on me that it's still New Year's Day and the hospital is closed except for emergencies and they're only going to call if something is drastically wrong, but it's only after Aaron eases the phone out of my hand and sets it upside-down on the table that I really understand that I don't want them to call. No news, it's true, is good news.

The c.o.c.ktail waitress arrives, expertly balancing a tray with our four Singapore slings-gin concoctions the color of a tropical sunset, topped with a pineapple wedge, two Maraschino cherries, and a paper umbrella. Before we can even take our first sip, I look at the waitress and exclaim, "Four more slings!" like I'm at a presidential reelection rally clamoring for another term. Meredith starts to protest, but I cut her off. "It's either that, or a p.e.n.i.s whistle and I tell everyone on that barge that you're getting married tomorrow."

Meredith nods her understanding, then confirms my order with the server. "Another round, please."

The server smiles at my sister with sympathy and whispers, "Congratulations."

As we drink our first slings, we grill Meredith about the wedding. Who proposed, when, and why elope. We do our best to make her the center of attention. While she's not consumed with bridehood, it is still her occasion, her day and not mine.

"Remember when you were six and got your head stuck in the back slats of a park bench and Mom freaked out and called the fire department?"

"What?" Jeffrey asks.

"You've never heard this? Turns out she could just crawl out the way she crawled in, but for some reason refused until two firemen pulled her out screaming."

"Why firemen?" Jeffrey asks. "Where was your father?"

"Working," I say. "He was always working."

Meredith smiles and turns the color of her drink. "What made you think of that?"

I don't know what made me think of that. "Are you stuck?" The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"What? What does that even mean?"

"I don't know." I whisper, "Pregnant?"

Meredith nearly chokes on her drink. "I'm stuck here with you drinking this, which is like grain alcohol or something. I had better not be pregnant."

"Oh, relax," I say, and Meredith kicks me under the table, hard, like we used to do when we were kids and ordered by our parents to be quiet. I scrunch my face at her, signaling that she will get hers in return, and she laughs again. Aaron and Jeffrey ask something about her dress.

"What about Franklin being Chinese?" I blurt.

"What about it?"