“At my place?” What the hell was I supposed to do with a two-hundred-pound dogby myself? “Maybe we’re misunderstanding what Otis wants. Maybe he—”
At that moment, Otis confirmed what I had always suspected. That he descended from some supernatural breed of wolf dog, because he calmly walked through the mudroom and out the door to wait quietly,patiently, at the passenger side of my truck.
“Is this some new trick you taught him?” I ground out. “Is this a prank the kids are pulling on us?”
“No, Otis wants to be with you. The kids will still see him all the time. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal, huh?” I retort, snapping back to the present at the butt crack of dawn, blinking blearily as Otis does his business in a patch of grass. “She’s not the one following you around withthis,” I say accusingly, shaking the pooper-scooper Deja gave Otis for Christmas with its bedazzled handle. He looks at me in the way that seems to say,Bruh, I’m the one stuck with you.
And I would not put it past Aunt Byrd to have had a little talk with Otis and made him promise to take care of me when she was gone.
“She got us both. Told you to take care of me. Me to take care of you. She was a trickster.”
Byrd was a lot of things. She was the strongest woman I ever met. She was indiscreet, conducting affairs and not giving a damn what anyone thought about it. She had shit taste in men, as proven by the four assholes she married. She was the first to laugh, the first to cry. She was selfless and generous and could cook her way into anyone’s heart.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over losing her. Losing the woman who raised me. When both your parents are dead by the time you turn eight, you’re absolutely certain that nothing is forever. Nooneis forever. My closest living relative was my whole world for a long time, and growing up I walked around waiting for the last shoe to drop. Waiting to lose her too.
And then one day I did.
“Damn, we’re morbid this morning,” I tell Otis as we enter the house through the front door.
He angles a long-suffering look at me that sayswe?
“Okay,me.” I walk through to the kitchen. “You hungry?”
He assumes the position at the raised stainless steel dog feeder Kassim found. Once my son understood that Great Danes have some of the shortest life spans, he did what young geniuses do. Researched every single thing that might extend Otis’s life, including a bowl raised off the floor so Otis won’t have to gulp his food and water. According to Kassim, dogs as tall as Otis end up swallowing air with their food when they have to bend down to eat and it gets trapped in their digestive tract. Since bloat is the number one killer of Danes, Kassim is trying to outwit Otis’s digestive system. Including putting him on a raw food diet.
“And guess what we’ve got for breakfast?” I pull out meat wrapped in white paper from the refrigerator, and Otis’s ears perk, his tail beating a happy rhythm into the floor. “Yup. Vashti set aside chicken thighs for you.”
Otis whines and lies down, sniffing the air like an exiled prince.
“Okay, every time I mention Vashti, you act all new.” I give him a knowing look. “You think I don’t see that? Give her a chance.”
I pull a container of pureed vegetables from the refrigerator. He rests his head on his paws and stares at me unwaveringly, as if waiting to be convinced. I toss the pureed veggies into a bowl with the raw meat Vashti sent home, crack an egg over it, and then top it with a little yogurt. At the sight of the bowl loaded with what Kassim assures me is a breakfast of champions, Otis perks up. Pulling his supplements from the cupboard, I add them to the goulash and set it in the standing dish holder. Otis rouses himself to dive in.
“I’mma leave you to it,” I tell him over my shoulder. “I need to shower. We’re taking the kids to the river.”
A happy “woof” is his only response. I turn to point one finger at him. “I know you love the river. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
I take the stairs and yell back, “But how could you ever say that when I do literally everything for you?”
I envision an air bubble over Otis’s head that might readDude, get over yourself.
“Yup,” I say, of courseto myselfas I strip and turn on the shower. “You’ve lived alone too long.”
The drive from Byrd’s three-bedroom craftsman cottage to the dream house Yasmen and I designed together is less than two minutes, but may as well be separated by a millennium. I loved the chaos of young kids and their friends all over the place all the time. The partnership of managing their lives, of raising them under the same roof. Even though Deja and Kassim bounce between our houses, they spend most of their time at Yasmen’s. Living alone without my kids was one of the biggest adjustments after the divorce. Both only children, Yasmen and I always planned to have at least four kids. By our first anniversary, Yasmen was pregnant with Deja. We waited a little while before Kassim. A few years later, we were excited to do it again. A pain so sharp I draw in a quick breath slices over my heart like a scalpel. I should be used to it by now, the pain, but it always catches me off guard, the freshness of it. After nearly three years, it still hasn’t been dulled by time.
I consider that one more thing to never get over as I pull into Yasmen’s driveway.
“Morning, Josiah!”
The greeting comes from the man standing on the front porch of the house next door, a modern blue-and-gray three-story contrasting with our more traditional white limestone. I get out of the truck and open the back door for Otis, who bounds up the steps of the house where we used to live. He settles in the corner by the swing, his favorite spot.
“Morning, Clint,” I reply to the neighbor who moved in shortly after we did.
Clint’s pale complexion and strawberry blond hair could make him look washed out, but his eyes are vivid blue and color climbs his cheeks. “Saw you last night at Food Truck Friday, but didn’t get a chance to speak.”
Before I can reply, Clint’s husband, Brock, wheels a stroller through their front door and onto the porch, followed by their chocolate Lab, Hershey.