Willie

FICTION

by Mary Gulino

          When I was in my early twenties, my boyfriend Shane rented a room in a one-story home, where the carpet was always damp. His landlord, Jodie, was a single mother of three who crammed her family into the remaining two bedrooms by sharing the master with the “baby,” who was actually four, but still used a crib and binky, instead of speaking full sentences or wearing real clothes.
         It was a time in my life I had completely forgotten until nearly a decade later, when I rushed my dog to the animal hospital and received him the following morning, his belly freshly shaven. The surprising sight of my dog’s bare skin reminded me of Jodie’s decrepit Bichon Frise, Willie, whose wiry hair had been razed, not in one go by a night-shift vet performing an emergency ultrasound, but by the cumulative stress of twelve years living in Jodie’s family.
         Willie was maybe ten pounds—small enough to hold in one hand, though no one had much of a desire to hold him at all. His coat had mostly fallen out, revealing age-spotted skin, purple-gray and thin like parchment. Fur remained only on Willie’s face, where dirty coils hung over milky eyes; and the arch of his back was permanent and severe, freezing him in the agitated state of a Halloween cat. Willie couldn’t see or hear. Few teeth remained in his mouth. Though there was barely anything canine left in his appearance, Jodie’s children teased and tousled Willie like he was still a spry puppy who could handle it. Their raucousness seemed on the surface cruel, but in actuality, must have satisfied in Willie a deep desire to feel normal. He clearly still longed to be touched, his magnet-like nose leading his stiff body toward any available calf.

         One Friday, after my shift at the department store, I drove sixty miles south to spend the weekend with Shane. As I parked, three blond heads barrel-rolled from under the garage door, which was stuck with rust and permanently agape.
         The oldest, Maddie, grabbed her overturned skateboard from the grass and coasted into the cul-de-sac, turning and turning like in a garden mandala. As she rode, her hair catching in the lamp light every few yards, Maddie shouted at me events from her day. I couldn’t retain what she said, because I was distracted balancing my duffle bag while corralling Willie who, having escaped through the garage, squirmed in celebration at my feet. I narrowly caught myself from accidentally slamming the car door on his soft head. Shane looked on as I struggled.

          Inside, we sat in the living room—Shane and Jodie on the couch, me on the piano bench—while the kids ran amok in service of some indecipherable game. Jodie enforced upon her household no rules, and as a result, every surface in the home was covered—in toys, liquid, crumbs.
          By then, I found Jodie’s peculiar attachment to Shane barely tolerable. A flash of crooked teeth, a friendly knee slap. It was clear she relished how he filled the void left by her ex-husband, a professional surfer I’d met only once. Her ex was dimpled, tall, well-traveled. I understood, when talking to him, why sunken-eyed Jodie had wanted to have his children.
         Finally, Jodie and the baby left for the store. Maddie and the boy hung back. Alone with these unbrushed children, I felt compelled to hover and dote. Maddie was two grades behind reading level—a fact I shouldn’t have known, but did. I took on her literacy as my responsibility, hopeful it was something I could solve in hour-long increments, every other week. In hindsight, every impulse I felt in that house had nothing to do with Shane. His presence in my conscience would grow smaller and smaller until, eventually, it disappeared. That night, he kept busy watching the boy lose a handheld video game again and again.
         Maddie practiced a handstand against the wall where the Christmas tree stood (it was not December). When I asked if she had any reading homework, she said it was optional. I didn’t believe her, but I wasn’t her mother, or aunt, or even tenant. Maddie made eye contact with me upside down as gravity purpled her face. “Look!”
         You look, I wanted to say but couldn’t justify doing. You’re very good at handstands, and surfing, and skateboarding. But don’t you want to learn to read? Of course, I read all the time, yet here I was, spending my Friday night in the same situation as her, in a room with no art on the walls and tangled nests of cables on the floor. I didn’t push about the schoolwork.
          Maddie rushed her dismount and nearly toppled old Willie, who scampered away, sensing the pump of air from her legs as they windmilled down. I knelt on the damp carpet to caress his ancient body. He leaned into my thigh.
          “Willie is twelve,” said Maddie, hoisting herself up in the space between the sofa and a table. She began doing leg lifts that impressed me very much.
          “That’s a good age for a dog.”
          “When I’m ten my mom said I can get my ears pierced.”
          “Wow.”
          “And when I’m thirteen I can get the second hole.”
          “Very cool.”
          My fingers moved from Willie’s back to his belly. His quickening breaths were proof that at least someone in the room was getting what they wanted. Shane remained transfixed on the video game, even as the boy hunched away, pulling his screen close. Weeks later, Shane would find a studio apartment in a modern building with keep-to-yourself neighbors and hardwood floors. There, absent chaos, he and I would finally admit we had very little to talk about, and garner the sense to end things. But in the meantime, in that house, we whiled away a Friday night, while a lonely mom filled her oversized shopping cart with things nobody needed.