Dog Medicine (15 page)

S
EPTEMBER
1996

The next day my cousin Lindsay and I drove to the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle to check out the rental house. Bunker was in the backseat as we drove up a steep hill and pulled up to the place. The house was big, partially hidden behind an enormous pine tree. It was gray with white trim, and the large flowerpots out front held long-dead plants.

We knocked and one of the current tenants let us in, clearly waking up from his midday nap, rubbing his eyes, and going back to bed after telling us to feel free to look around. Lindsay and I laughed quietly, then started snooping. The house was big, drafty, and old, with huge windows and tons of light pouring in. On the first floor was a living room with a large fireplace flanked by built-in bookshelves. The kitchen was small but functional, and the dining room had a huge plate-glass window that looked out over the city. A door from the kitchen led to a deck that wrapped around two sides of the house and offered jaw-dropping views of the Seattle skyline and Mount Rainier.

Left of the living room were two small rooms and a staircase leading to three bedrooms and a second bathroom upstairs. From the kitchen, steps led down to an unfinished basement that held a mustard-yellow pool table and a refrigerator painted with “BEER” in block letters.

Bunker and I wandered out the basement door to what Melissa had assured me would be a great yard for a dog. It was a big, slanted expanse of overgrowth. From the basement door, down a flight of
creaky stairs, the yard sloped to a fence buried in vines. Bunker and I made our way down, walked all the way to the edge of the large lot, pushing weeds and branches out of our way.

I stood at the base of the hill and peered up at the house feeling as if I'd been sent to rescue this little patch of land, to reclaim it, care for it, show how resilient the earth can be, even in the most neglected and misused spaces. As I walked, I picked up crushed beer cans and fast-food wrappers. A long snake-like shape that I'm pretty sure was the tail of an enormous rat scurried through the brush. And I thought,
This has potential.

“We can make this work, buddy. Don't you think?” I said to Bunker, scratching his rump. He looked up at me, his mouth open in a smile before he scurried, deeply focused on the mysterious movement in the grass. I imagined pulling all the weeds, making a real lawn, a vegetable garden even, building a beautiful doghouse out of scrap wood, finding an old patio set and making a little area for outdoor lounging, hanging twinkling lights, and planting flowers.

I wanted to dig my hands into the dirt right there, mark my presence. My cousin called down from the deck off of the living room, “Come check out this view!” Bunker and I began to climb the stairs to join her. On the third step up, Bunker stumbled. His back legs gave out in a flattened splay. He yelped. I gasped and lifted his rear end up and watched concerned as he swayed up the rest of the stairs. I reached the top step and looked back down expecting to find a hole in one of the planks, but saw nothing, so tried not to worry. He must have missed a step or slipped. But in the back of my mind, fear grew. Mom and I had never taken Bunker to the vet after the Sun Valley hike. What if something really was wrong?

Soon we joined Lindsay at the deck's railing and took in the view: Mount Rainier to the left, downtown Seattle to the right, big open sky as far as we could see. The sun pouring over the city
made us ignore that when we walked, the deck swayed with the stress of our weight. We smiled, locked eyes, a wordless celebration. I felt welcomed by the energy of this big house, its openness, its light and air, its need. As we thanked the soon-to-vacate tenant and left, I stood on the sidewalk with Bunker and thought about what a contrast this new life would be compared to my dark bedroom in Manhattan. I could plant grass and flowers, sit outside, and feel the sun and rain on my face.

Lindsay was fourteen and I could tell that she thought that my soon-to-be new life was the coolest thing ever. We drove home with the windows down, Pearl Jam blaring, singing at the top of our lungs, the wind whipping our hair into our faces. It was a celebration of new beginnings. As we crossed the bridge over Lake Washington, Bunker stood up in the backseat, looked out at the water and howled, as if to announce our arrival in this beautiful city. I felt like the summer sun would never set on that day.

I thought for a moment about the pot on the stove in my dingy New York apartment, the crawling to the phone, and though it was less than six months earlier, it felt like a lifetime away. Everything before Bunker felt as if it happened in another lifetime. I wasn't awake until I found him, and he found me. Our bond felt that strong, my essence renewed in his presence. He healed me, and to thank him, I planned to give him the best life possible. He was barely six months old, still a puppy. But I looked in the rearview mirror and saw in his sparkling brown eyes an ancient soul, one who came to me with a distinct purpose. I nodded in gratitude to whatever forces brought us together. I reached back with the hand that wasn't on the steering wheel and petted his head. He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. We were together in this new adventure. I couldn't wait to get started.

We moved into the house a week later, helping each other with our things. Before unpacking, we ordered a celebratory pizza and clinked Red Hook beer bottles on the back deck. The
planks wobbled when we walked, and we joked that were it to fall, Chris, who was closest to the house, would grab onto the doorjamb and we'd all grab onto him. It was August in Seattle and the weather was divine: warm sun, cool breeze, and a feeling of contentment and satisfaction that I chalked up to this city. Our conversation felt like one long belly laugh. I knew it already—Seattle and these friends just worked for me. I lay in bed at night those first few weeks thinking that I must have been a Northwestern girl accidentally switched at birth with a bunch of Midwesterners.

My roommates gave me the biggest bedroom in the house, the one on the first floor closest to the front door, and Melissa got the room with the view of Mount Rainier. Greg's room was directly above mine. Somehow Chris landed the bedroom not much wider than a twin bed, but he said he didn't care, that he planned to only sleep there, that's all. His generosity endeared him to us all.

We unpacked, walked the dog, grocery shopped, watched television together, and I gave up on the lingering fear that moving to Seattle could go the way of my horrible year in New York. My housemates already felt like family. Melissa laughed with abandon and confided in me like she already trusted that I would be a good, loyal friend. She'd call me and say only, “Hey, it's me.” The way she assumed intimacy between us was an unexpected gift that I wasn't sure I knew how to accept or reciprocate. I wanted desperately to honor her trust in me, so I found myself showing up for her as a friend in ways I never had. I'd always understood that female friendships were special, but I realized in Seattle that I'd never really had a best friend. Soon we were inseparable. We sat hip-to-hip on the couch, laughing about how we didn't care that our asses were expanding as we watched
Sixteen Candles
for the third time on a Sunday at noon in our pajamas. Pass the Ben & Jerry's.

Melissa loved Bunker, and he adored her. She called, “Bunkah,
aroooo,” when she saw him and he pranced to her, spinning, and finally giving her the howl she asked for. He was our buddy, all of ours, and I felt like a single mom who had moved into a commune that had happily adopted both my child and me.

Bunker loved the roommates, but he snuggled the most with Greg, who worked crazy hours in his laboratory. Many nights, Greg would ride his bike home around midnight, after working a fourteen-hour day. Bunker would stir at the sound of Greg's key in the door and greet him quietly, the last of our makeshift family to return to the den. When Greg grabbed a bag of Goldfish crackers and sat on the couch to watch
SportsCenter
, Bunker would hop up and lie down next to him, resting his chin on Greg's lap, hoping for a dropped fish or two.

Greg moved in with just a mattress, a dresser, a futon, an old television, and a garbage bag full of shoes and clothes. When I asked him what other furniture he had at his apartment, he said mostly he used cardboard boxes for tables and just never spent time there. “My old place was above a futon shop on a loud street,” he said. “Crappy place to spend my first year of grad school.” I felt a tenderness toward him that felt kind of like a crush, but less urgent. Normally my crushes felt critical—like I had to act on my feelings for that boy instantly, get him before he got away. This was more of a calm admiration, and I sat with it for a few weeks, just enjoying the feeling of having a cute, blue-eyed boy sleeping in the bedroom above mine. I remember listening to his footfalls on the old, creaky floorboards and imagining what it would be like to tiptoe up the stairs and slip into bed next to him.

S
EPTEMBER
1996

I needed a job. I had only about seven hundred dollars left, four hundred of which would go to rent in a few weeks. My one year of experience in publishing in New York didn't help me find connections or a job in Seattle, so I signed up at a local temp agency. My first day of work would be as a receptionist at a law firm. The night before, I lay in bed petrified about how I would fare without Bunker by my side. Leaving Bunker was, for me, like taking someone off of a lifesaving medication and tossing them into a foot race. I dreaded sitting behind a desk all day in an office building. But I woke early, resigned to walk Bunker, then shower, get dressed, and go. I had no choice. I pulled on my long black skirt telling myself that I could do it. The receptionist job was part time, so I would only have to sustain myself without him for about five or six hours.

I walked Bunker in the early dawn, his orange fur glinting in the rising sun. It was a cloudless day, and that seemed a good omen. I talked to him about needing to leave, that I'd be back soon, and he would be okay in his crate. The two consistent things about all of this transition in his young life were his crate and me. He happily trotted in and accepted a treat, and I told him I loved him and would be back as soon as I could. I opened the window a bit so he would have some fresh air, and then I walked out the door.

The longing for him was instantaneous. At the bus stop, I had
to talk myself out of running back to the house and locking us in our room, never coming out. When the bus came and I climbed on, I watched my bedroom window disappear slowly as we descended the hill. I looked around and thought that no one on this bus knew the terrible feeling I carried. No one knew how hard it was for me to be away from the one thing that saves me. Did anyone else feel this way? I decided that everyone would deem me insane if I confessed my intense attachment to my dog. The thought left me isolated, lonely inside a world in my head—a very old and familiar place indeed. I felt terrifyingly close to the old Julie who sat on the subway trying to be invisible.

Then an old, frail woman clutching a black pleather purse against her chest smiled at me and said, “Oh, darling. You're beautiful inside. I can see.” Her voice was quiet, bird-like. I just about gasped. I thanked her, sat down next to her, and said, “Oh wow. Thank you. You're beautiful too.”

With the help of that kind stranger, I made it through the day. The job was fine. The head receptionist wore a bright-red pantsuit and had hair so thickly sprayed that not one strand moved all day. She took me under her wing in a sweet, motherly way. When 1:59 flipped to 2:00 and I was done for the day, despite terrible hunger because I'd forgone lunch, I hopped on the first bus and raced to my door.

“Bunker!” I said, tossing my things on the floor and rushing to the crate. “I'm home!” I sat on the floor and he walked over to me, curling his body into mine, kissing my face. Happy chills coursed up my spine. All of the day's anxieties vanished. “Walk time?” I asked. “Wanna go for a walk?” It was a phrase he knew, and he pranced in circles by the front door. I grabbed a bagel in the kitchen, held it between my teeth as I took off my work clothes and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. I laced up my tennis shoes and clipped on his leash, and we were off.

Soon we would establish this daily walking route through the
neighborhood to Queen Anne Avenue. I was teaching him to diligently stop at all corners and sit down before crossing the street. A few blocks into our walk, we always stopped by the kids' soccer field that doubled as a late-afternoon dog park, and he sniffed and visited with the other dogs. He never really raced around the park, mostly sat down next to me and leaned against my leg. Friendly dog owners commented on how he was glued to my side, and I smiled, said that he was a typical golden retriever, more interested in people than other dogs.

Back at the house that afternoon, Bunker snoozed on the floor while I sat with Melissa, discussing her boyfriend. He'd suddenly begun talking about breaking up. The idea struck her as ludicrous because they both agreed that they were wonderful together. She had fallen deeply in love for the first time, but he told her he wasn't sure she was the one for him. “I just don't get it,” she said, wiping the tears that wouldn't stop. “I thought we were so good together. I guess he just doesn't love me.” I handed her tissues, sat with her under warm blankets, and listened. I knew her pain, and I wanted to be there for her. I understood that heartbreak felt nearly impossible, that it tore you up in ways you couldn't anticipate. I knew she would go over the same conversations in her mind, that she would pine for him in strange ways, pray for the phone to ring, look for him everywhere. I tried to just listen.

Those early weekends, I worked in the yard. We hadn't been in the rental house a month, and the back yard was already starting to shape up. I had cleared the weeds and picked up the garbage, dug a small switchback pathway and paved it with the bricks and stones that I found buried just under the soil. I built a makeshift doghouse. Bunker and I spent long afternoons knee-deep in dirt and weeds as the other roommates watched from above, every now and then marveling at our progress. I felt mildly self-conscious about my determination to transform the yard, but that quickly faded
when I thought about what Bunker needed and what I wanted for him. Besides, sculpting the landscape around me was in my blood. On the afternoons when I walked into the house covered in sweat and bugs, my skin stinging because it'd been sliced and poked by weeds and thorns, I felt a quiet pride because I was indeed my mother's daughter.