Going Overboard (22 page)

The vet put a hand on my shoulder. “You must have lost a childhood pet when you were a kid, too. So you know that time heals and soon you'll have all the happy memories of Tanner.”

I looked at him with wet, stinging eyes. “Tanner
was
my childhood pet,” I said and turned to leave.

Back inside the car, I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel and closed my eyes.

“Why me?” I cried. “I can't take it anymore!”

I wanted to sit there forever. I dreaded going home to the piles of mail, dishes, and laundry, and the thought of waking up in the morning and taking care of the boys and the house all by myself again made me cry harder. There seemed to be no end.

My head began to ache. I leaned it back on the seat and sighed. I can't go home. Not right now. But I couldn't sit in the parking lot forever either, so I took a deep breath, straightened my back and wiped my eyes with my fingers, which still smelled like Tanner's fur. I was holding her green-and-white collar clutched in my left hand. I kissed it and said, “Good-bye,” one last time; then I laid the collar on the passenger seat beside me and started driving. I didn't know where I was going. And I didn't care either. I just wanted to keep moving.

Eventually I wound up at the Navy base. I toyed with the idea of going up to see Dr. Ashley, but in one unusually clearheaded moment, I decided to go to the Fleet and Family Support Center
instead. It was almost closing time, and the waiting room was empty, so I went directly to the desk of the only employee I saw there. She was a skeletal civilian with permed orange hair pulled back tight in a banana clip. She was busily writing something on a notepad, or possibly simply ignoring me.

“Can I help you?” she said in a smoker's voice and without looking up.

My hands were shaking; it was hard to admit my failures and that I needed help. But I cleared my throat and said, “Yes, I need some help with my finances. My husband—”

“Take a number and sit down,” she said, still not looking up.

I glanced around the room. There were definitely no other people waiting in line, and she was the only employee so far as I could see.

“But I'm the only person here, and I just thought—”

The woman finally looked up with a blank expression that punctuated her lack of amusement.

I stuttered and cleared my throat again. “I mean, I just saw that no one else was waiting, and—”

“Read the sign,” she said, pointing with her pen to a piece of notebook paper taped to the front of her desk. Written shakily in pencil the sign read:

“Oh, I see that now,” I said. “But I'm the only one here, and I just thought, you know—”

She looked at me hard and raised an eyebrow. The wrinkles radiating from her mouth were like deep valleys, and there was the faintest amount of fuzzy hair above her lip. I felt a little afraid of her.

“Well, OK then,” I said. “I guess I'll just take a number and sit down.”

I went to a red number dispenser and pulled the tab. Number seventeen. Did numbers one to sixteen go through this same ordeal? I wondered.

There was a makeshift waiting room consisting of a grouping of plastic chairs along the beige cement wall, so I found a seat and sat with my purse in my lap. I wasn't going to get comfortable.

A few moments later, the woman put down her pen and took a breath to speak. I got ready to stand.

“Now taking number sixteen,” she said.

You've got to be kidding me! I glanced around at the empty chairs.

“Number sixteen,” she called again. Then she waited a minute before going back to her writing.

I was starting to get angry. This is the problem with military facilities, I thought. They follow the rules, whether they make any sense or not. Apparently the woman had been taught that everyone needs a number and everyone has to wait. Why didn't someone empower her to make exceptions when her good judgment called for it?

I shifted in my seat, purposely making noise so she wouldn't forget I was there. But, really, how could she forget?

The woman put down the pen again, looked out across the room, and said to no one in particular, “Number seventeen. Now taking number seventeen.”

I jumped to my feet.

“Uh, that's me,” I said with what I hoped was a convincing smile and approached the desk again.

She stared at me with the one raised eyebrow.

“Um, let's see.” I started riffling through my purse, pulling out the checkbook and a wad of crumpled-up receipts and a few bills. “I'm having some trouble understanding my checkbook, and my
husband is deployed. I was wondering if someone could help me make sense of all this.”

“I'm sorry, but we're closing in ten minutes,” she said.

My kill-her-with-kindness smile snapped into a frown. “You're kidding me, right?” I said. “You made me sit over there waiting, and now you tell me there's no time?”

“I'm sorry,” she said again. “But rules are rules. It doesn't matter what rank your husband is. Everyone waits their turn.”

That
really
set me off. I was accustomed to this sort of thing when I was still Dad's dependent, because when you're the daughter of a Captain or an Admiral, people assume you want special treatment. In reality, though, Dad always taught us the opposite: to let others go first and respect the privileges we had. I never once expected preferential treatment from this orange-haired witch. Not to mention, as a junior officer, my husband was hardly at the top of the military food chain.

“Excuse me? Did you just say—” I involuntarily stomped my foot.

“I said that you needed to wait your turn, and you did, and now it's closing time.”

I was beginning to feel hot with anger. “This is absolutely unacceptable,” I said. “It was hard enough coming here to ask for help, and now you're talking to me like this!”

Just then, a heavyset woman with salt-and-pepper hair came out of an office door in the back. I recognized her noisy pant hose and leather shoes at once: She was the counselor who had talked to us at Kate's house.

“What seems to be the trouble out here?” she asked, coming closer.

“This lady made me wait,” I began, and my voice cracked. “She . . . she . . . she made me wait . . . for no reason . . . and now she's telling me that . . . that . . . that I can't get any help . . . and my dog just died . . . and I feel so tired . . . and—”

I struggled to take a breath. The counselor came over and put
her arm around me. She hugged me to her shoulder and patted my back. “Now, now,” she said. “Of course we'll help you. Let's go into my office.”

For nearly an hour, the counselor walked me through the process of balancing a checkbook and keeping track of bills. I was absurdly grateful. Why hadn't anyone taught me this before? I wondered. And then, oh, yeah, Dustin tried to teach me several times, but I never wanted to listen. And now I wondered why.

I left the office feeling more empowered than I had in years. I was a woman with a checkbook—a balanced checkbook—and I could take on the world.

I practically high-kicked back to the car, I felt so good. I thought, I can walk past a roach and not be scared! I can feel a bump on my temple and not worry about tumors! I was liberated! I thought I could even get on a plane and fly!

But then I shook my head and came back to my senses. I didn't feel THAT good.

I sent Dustin an e-mail about Tanner that night and was surprised when he called me an hour later.

“I'm sorry to hear about Tanner,” he said. “I know that was hard for you.”

I thought about our fight the morning before he had left, when he had cursed at Tanner, and the memory made me bristle.

“Well, you know, she was a just a ‘damn dog,' right?” I said bitterly.

“Hey, now, that's not fair, Sarah,” he said. “I didn't mean it when I said those things. We were both under a lot of stress.”

I didn't have the energy to answer, so I said nothing. Where once I might have mustered up the strength and emotion to argue, instead I just felt tired and numb.

But I wasn't sure exactly why I was so mad at Dustin. Obviously, Tanner's death wasn't his fault, and, after all, he did call to
comfort me. Yet still I felt abandoned by him, as if he should have been there to hold me at the vet's office.

Dustin cleared his throat. “So have you definitely decided not to come to France?”

“Yep.”

I knew he wanted me to expound, but I was too tired. Hadn't I explained the way I felt a hundred times before? Why didn't he listen then? What about the day I wanted to talk at the legal office when we were waiting to make his will?

Dustin took a deep breath and said, “Well, that's awfully disappointing, Sarah. Can't you at least do it for me?”

Do it for him?

I was sitting on the couch flipping through a fashion magazine, only I wasn't reading or paying attention to any of the articles and pictures.

I didn't answer him, so he said, “Sarah? Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Why don't you tell me what's going on?” he said. “I can tell something's up. It's in your voice.”

“Oh, you mean besides my dog dying? Hmmm, let's see. . . .”

He sighed again. “Come on, Sarah. I'm trying to be serious.”

I threw the magazine on our weathered white coffee table. “All right,” I said. “You want to know what's going on?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I'll tell you what's up. I balanced the checkbook for the first time today. And a few weeks ago I set my own raccoon traps in the attic. I even fixed the toilet . . . with my bare hands! I've spent sleepless nights with Owen crying until I thought I couldn't hold my head up anymore. I found my dog dying beneath our bed—”

“I know,” Dustin interrupted. “It's definitely not easy, but you knew that when we got married—”

“No, Dustin, let me finish,” I said, and the hardness of my voice surprised me. “Yes, doing all these things is stressful, but
here's the funny thing. When I sat down to sort through the bills and mail today, I felt more in control than I ever have in my life. You know, I realized, ‘I'm not a
dependent
! I'm not dependent on Dustin!' ”

“I'm glad you had that experience, then,” he said. “But why does that affect your decision about coming to see me?”

Duh! Why are men so thickheaded? Can't they follow a conversation?

I huffed and said, “Because if I were to come see you, Dustin—forgetting all the minor details of flying in an airplane . . . over an ocean!—I would fall right back into that same trap of being your dependent. It's the way we are! I'm changing. My fear is that you—or we—can't change.”

Dustin was quiet, as if all this had hit him out of the blue, as if I wasn't making any sense.

Suddenly I could hear the ship's 1-MC echoing through the hallways behind him: “This is a drill: Man overboard, man overboard. Report to your duty stations for mustering purposes only. This is a drill.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“The ship's intercom,” he said. “We're doing a man-overboard drill. I need to get to the ready room to check in.”

His voice was soft, almost a whisper, but I couldn't tell if it sounded more dejected or exasperated.

“OK,” I said. “Well, then, I guess we should just say good-bye then.”

“Guess so.”

“All right then.”

The 1-MC blared in the background again: “This is a drill. This is a drill. . . .”

“I've got to go now, Sarah,” Dustin said; then he paused, as if he were waiting for me to respond. I didn't.

“I love you,” he said and hung up.

12
DID I SAY IT WAS A STRAY CAT?

T
he other wives flew to France a few days later. “I should stay here and take care of things for everyone,” I told them, but anyone who knew me well enough knew it was an excuse.

Besides, what did I need to “take care of” anyway? They had all arranged for neighbors to water their plants and check their mail, and Jody's in-laws came to watch her kids. No one really needed me to stay behind, and yet I still couldn't get on a plane and go.

So while Courtney and Jody and everyone else rendezvoused with their husbands in Cannes, I stayed home and agreed to take care of Courtney's black cat . . . to make my “taking care of things” farce seem more legitimate.

And I hate cats. To me, cats are unpredictable. The way they stalk and pounce makes me nervous, and worst of all, I think cats sense my discomfort around them. They seem to study me, circling around and waiting to attack. I just know every cat I've ever met has had it in for me. They must know I'm the dreaded “dog person.”

But I thought caring for Courtney's cat would be easy. Courtney said I only needed to go to her house once a day and put out food and clean water. Unlike a dog, the cat didn't need companionship and she wouldn't fetch a ball. She didn't need to be exercised, and Courtney claimed the cat wouldn't even care if I paid her no attention at all.

Perfect, I thought. I'll just put food in the bowl and get out. What could be easier?

But the first day I went to check on Devil Cat—not her real name, but stay with me here—she was more than a little disgruntled about being left alone. I opened the front door and Courtney's burglar alarm sounded a warning signal. I ran to the laundry room to silence it. I didn't see Devil Cat, but I knew she was probably lurking somewhere, watching me and waiting.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” I called out, because I had once heard Courtney do that.

I was holding Ford on my hip and had left Owen sleeping in his carrier in the foyer by the front door.

“Kitty, kitty,” Ford said and giggled.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” we said together.

I was laughing and rubbing my nose up against Ford's when I heard a soft meow.

“Oh, she must be nearby,” I said. When I turned around, I saw a scrawny black cat sitting in the kitchen doorway wagging her tail. I thought only dogs wagged their tails.

“Look, she's glad to see us,” I said to Ford. “Here, kitty. Come here, kitty.”

Devil Cat lifted a front paw and licked it, but she never took her eyes off us.

I looked at Ford and shrugged. The cat seemed pleasant enough. She was wagging her tail, after all.

“Oh, well,” I said. “Let's go get the kitty some food.”

I turned my back and rummaged through Courtney's pantry.

“Let's see. Courtney said it would be a shiny purple bag . . . and there's supposed to be a spoon . . . and—”

Just then, Devil Cat made a screeching sound like an angry monkey, and before I could turn around to look at her, I felt a pain in my calf like razor blades sinking into my flesh.

“Holy cow,” I yelled and jumped up in the air.

Her jaw was clamped to my leg and she yanked at it like a dog does his chew toy. The sensation of her knifelike teeth sinking into my skin still gives me chills, and to this day, I can't stab a piece of chicken with a fork without thinking about Devil Cat.

I screamed again and shook my leg, but her teeth were too far into the muscle. She was attached, and with each shake of my leg, she flailed around like someone on one of those giant swings at an amusement park.

“Oh, my God,” I yelled. “Get off me! Get off me!”

Then I kicked my leg forward, more forcefully this time, and the cat released her grip. She went sliding across the linoleum and banged into the cabinets with a thud.

I still had Ford on my hip, and his eyes were like saucers. I clutched him to my chest and jumped onto Courtney's kitchen table.

“Oh, no, Owen!” I yelled. But Devil Cat never seemed to notice him sleeping peacefully in his carrier by the front door. She was decidedly more determined to attack me than anyone else.

After a few moments of shaking her head and meowing, the cat recovered from the slam against the cabinet and started circling the table like a shark.

“Get away, you stupid cat,” I yelled and Ford, who up until this point was frozen with fear, burst into tears.

“No, don't cry, baby,” I said. “Cats don't jump on furniture, so we're safe up here.”

I could have sworn I heard Devil Cat laughing at me at this
point, and with one forceful, silent leap, she jumped up onto a chair beside the table. She was licking her lips again.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Ford cried. “Scary cat! Scary cat!”

There was a fuzzy mouse toy near my foot, and I kicked it hard across the room, toward the back door. Devil Cat leaped from the chair and chased after the mouse. I jumped down from the table and ran to the front door, still holding Ford on my hip. I reached down, grabbed Owen's carrier, and slammed the heavy wood door behind us.

Once I was safe inside the car and had the boys secured in their seats, I looked down at my calf. Bright red blood was trickling from four pinholes in my skin, and everything below my knee was beginning to swell. Normally, for a medical crisis, I would have run to Jody's or Melanie's house, but they were both overseas, darn it!

So I grabbed the cell phone and called my parents. When I told Mom what had happened, she screamed and handed the phone to Dad. Despite being competent and independent, Mom, whenever Dad is nearby, doesn't do well in emergencies. When my older brother, Van, choked on a piece of steak, Mom ran out the front door screaming. Thankfully, Dad was home and did the Heimlich maneuver, but Mom insists if he hadn't, she would have pulled through. “I only fell apart because I knew I could,” she always says.

Once Dad was on the phone, I recounted the whole ordeal, barely stopping to take a breath. It's a wonder Dad understood anything I said.

“Was it a stray cat?” he said in a calm, steady voice.

“No, it was my friend Courtney's,” I said. “She's meeting the ship in France, and I'm taking care of the cat for her.”

“Oh,” Dad said, “why didn't you go to France?”

I twisted up my face and huffed. “Dad, you know I don't fly! And besides, let's get back to my emergency here.”

“OK, OK,” he said. “Cat bites can be really dirty. They harbor lots of bacteria. You should probably go to the hospital and have it looked at. They might want to give you a tetanus shot.”

“A shot?” I yelped. “Do you really think it's that bad?”

“Probably not,” he said. “It's nothing to get all worked up about. Just go to the hospital and have it looked at. That's all you need to do, Sarah.”

He was beginning to sound irritated and impatient. I felt myself spiraling into that all too familiar hypochondria, when no amount of comforting words helps, and though I try to extract information from my unlucky listeners, I never believe their response.

“You think it's bad, don't you?” I said. “Tell me the truth, Dad: You think that cat gave me some disease!”

“It's really nothing to get worked up about,” he said. “The cat has its rabies shots up-to-date, right?”

I closed my eyes and put my head against the steering wheel. Visions of Old Yeller spun around in my mind. They'll have to put me in a barn and shoot me, I thought.

“Just go to the hospital,” Dad said again. “Everything will be fine.”

The base emergency room was packed, but because my leg was swelling and both my children were screaming, the nurse decided to check me in right away.

I knew the hospital would be required to contact animal control about the bite, and if I blamed Courtney's cat, they might confiscate her. So when the nurse asked me to describe the incident, I lied.

“I was walking down the street and this big black stray cat jumped out and bit me in the leg.”

“A stray cat?” the nurse said. “Really? It just jumped out and bit you?”

“Yep. It flew out of the bushes and attacked me, just like that.”

She scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “We'll have to contact city officials about this,” she said and led me back to the exam room.

I waited a long time on a bed behind a curtain, trying to keep Owen quiet and Ford from crawling on the dirty floor. Eventually I convinced him the bed was a “boat” and he played “pirates” for a good twenty minutes—twenty minutes I had to contemplate whether Dr. Ashley might be there, and what I might say if he appeared as my attending physician. But when the curtain finally slid open, the man standing there in a white coat was definitely not Dr. Ashley. He was tall—about six three—with gray hair and a hunched back. His legs were extraordinarily long, and his lips were set in a firm straight line.

“What seems to be the trouble?” he asked, looking down at the clipboard.

“Well, there was this stray cat, and I was walking down the street, and he jumped out from behind a bush and bit my leg. My dad said I should have it checked out.” I twisted my leg around to show the damage.

The doctor came closer and rubbed the skin near the four pinholes gently with his finger. “Hmmm,” he said. “Looks like a good bite you got there. Is it tender?”

I winced as he suddenly pressed hard on my calf.

“Yes, it hurts a lot,” I said. “Is there any chance my regular doctor—Dr. Ashley—is here tonight?”

The doctor looked up with a blank expression. “I don't know of any Dr. Ashley,” he said. “Must be a resident. But no, there's no one here with that name today.”

I felt a wave of disappointment, and it occurred to me that I was now
completely
alone. Dustin was gone. All my girlfriends were overseas. My parents were in another state. And even my doctor wasn't on call.

There was no one to help.

The doctor scribbled something on a chart, then peered at the bite again. “So a stray cat did this to you?”

“Yep, it just jumped out of the bushes and attacked me, that vicious cat!”

The doctor frowned. “Well, then, we need to get you started on the rabies series right away. I'll call for the nurse.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “A rabies series? What do you mean?”

“We have no way of knowing a stray cat's vaccination history,” he said, “so we need to do the shots just in case.”

My heart was beginning to beat faster. I remembered some urban legend about the rabies shot being given with a twelve-inch needle in your stomach.

“Well, actually,” I stuttered, “actually, it was really my friend's cat. I'm watching it while she's overseas meeting her husband in France.”

“Your friend's cat,” he said doubtfully.

“Yes, really, it was. I only said it was a stray before because I was afraid you'd report it and the cat would be taken away.”

The doctor frowned at me again and scratched his head. “So a friend's cat did this?”

“Yep.”

“And she's out of the country?”

“Yes, sir.”

He studied the chart, then pointed at me with his pen. “You have twenty-four hours to get that cat's shot record. And if you can't, we'll start the rabies series. Your tetanus shot is already up-to-date.”

He turned to leave, calling over his shoulder, “A nurse will be in to clean up the wound.”

That night I racked my brain, trying to remember any snippet of information Courtney might have given me about her travel plans. I tried calling her cell phone, but the call wouldn't go through.

I felt frantic. The doctor's words—“rabies” and “tetanus”—were swirling in my mind and making me dizzy. At midnight, my jaw began to feel tight, and after a quick search on the Internet, I confirmed that “lockjaw” is another word for “tetanus.”

I called my parents, and once again, Mom screamed and handed the phone to Dad.