Lily and the Octopus (14 page)

Since the arrival of the octopus, I find myself spinning a familiar cocoon. It’s impossible to talk about what I can’t bring myself to say. If I were to join friends at a noisy bar
or in a crowded restaurant and anyone were to ask, “How’s Lily?” what on Earth would I say?

“Well, there’s an octopus on her head.”

“There’s an
ostrich in her bed
?”

Any conversation would only unravel from there.

Slowly I lift my head and take in my surroundings. There’s a shirtless model outside of Abercrombie & Fitch. Nordstrom is undergoing some sort of storefront remodel. Crate & Barrel
is pushing patio umbrellas in bold, striped fabrics. Someone who may or may not be Mark Ruffalo is making a beeline toward Kiehl’s. Slowly, the pounding in my head stops. Slowly, my body
temperature lowers, my normal heartbeat returns.

I wish there was a way I could see from my phone if the octopus was gone. Some sort of app connected to a series of nanny cams to spy on every room in my house. Something that would allow me to
look at Lily asleep in her bed, her head unencumbered by that beast, her mind deep in the sweetest dream. Or maybe I’m glad that there’s not. Maybe it would just be one more thing on my
phone for me to check obsessively, taking me out of the moment, taking me away from life. Maybe I would use it as permission to stay clear of Lily in my magical thinking that that’s when the
octopus will leave, even though I know deep down it’s going to take a lot more than a trip to the mall for him to go.

When I get home the octopus is still there. My heart sinks, despite my brain telling it not to. I saddle Lily in her harness and grab her leash and we head out on a walk. Our old walk, the one
up the quieter street with the hill. The one we used to take daily before our syndrome made us hermits and our outdoor excursions became limited to the shorter route that looped us quickly back
home.

As we walk two blocks and round the corner and climb the hill that gives us a distant view of the Hollywood sign, Lily catches the scent of something on the grass between the sidewalk and the
street. I let her sniff. There will be no yanking her by the neck. She can have all the time in the world. And I will forgive myself for the mistakes I’ve made. For the times I got so angry.
For the times I’ve acted hatefully.

The afternoon air is cool, the haze is soft. The last few petals of the jacaranda trees color the sidewalk. The streets are empty. People are not yet home from work to walk their dogs. We
don’t get any strange looks or sideways glances. No one stops to ask why there’s an octopus hitching a ride on my dog. In the distance, soft mountains and rolling hills mark the edge of
the Los Angeles basin. There’s the slightest hint of salt in the air—you’d have to really want to smell it, but it’s there.

“Oh, look! The Hollywood sign.” It’s the octopus. Lily has finished sniffing and has turned to look back at me.

I roll my eyes.

“It’s smaller than I imagined.”

“You’re smaller than I imagined.” It’s not much of a comeback and I’m not even sure what I mean by it, but it’s all I have. Smaller as in petty, I guess.

For the briefest of moments, I think maybe the octopus just wants to see some sights. The Hollywood sign. Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Venice Beach. The building where they filmed
Die
Hard
. That maybe he mistook Lily for a small, four-legged tour bus, and he’s riding up top on a double-decker waiting for the next photo op.

But I know this isn’t true.

Still, it’s important for us to get out more, I think, while looking out at the expanse. Not so the octopus can leave, but because maybe the octopus is here to stay.

I
wake to find the bed shaking and immediately think it’s an earthquake. We haven’t had one, a memorable one, for years, and in the
back of my mind I’ve been preparing.

Expecting.

Waiting.

I prop myself up on my elbows and stare into the darkness. Something’s different; something’s not right. There’s not the usual rolling sensation of surfing tectonic waves. My
stomach isn’t sinking in the way it does when you reach the top of a roller coaster, in the split seconds before the first drop. There isn’t the usual calmness that overtakes me, the
antithesis of how you think you’d react in an earthquake—the ability to think where flashlight batteries are, to count the ounces of bottled drinking water in the house, to remember how
a transistor radio works, to wonder if you’re wearing something acceptably dignified for when your body is found.

I place my hand on Lily and the source of this seismic activity becomes clear—she is in the throes of another seizure. I roll onto my side and pull her tightly to my chest. My lips are
right behind her ear, behind the octopus, and I whisper angrily, “Let go of her. Let go of her. Let go!” And then to Lily, “I’ve got you. I’m here. Shhh.”

My mind drifts and I think of us in a tented war hospital, somewhere not far from the battlefield. The air is hot and thick, and Lily, the wounded veteran, is shaking in a morphine haze, deep in
jarring flashbacks of the horrific events of war. I am the loving nurse trying to calm the soldier, telling her to ignore the blasts of distant shells, ignore the moans of her fellow wounded,
ignore the stench of charred flesh and destroyed lives, ignore the cawing of spiteful magpies singing gleefully of impending death, all while calmly wiping her forehead.

Lily continues to convulse with her eyes rolled back and my terror metastasizes into helplessness, paralysis, as I wait for the convulsions to stop. I hold my hand under her chin to keep her
from thrashing her neck. It occurs to me that she may bite, involuntarily or out of fear, but I don’t care. Let her bite me. I would welcome the pain. I would rather something awake me from
my utter uselessness. My tears start as I begin to feel like the octopus is squeezing my own head, his eight arms suctioned to my skin, compressing like the vise of my panic attacks. I almost
remove my hand from under Lily’s jaw to see if the octopus has not in fact jumped from her head to mine. Almost. Because I know he hasn’t. I can see him still, his tentacles gripped
firmly around her.

As the shaking slows, I’m aware of a growing warmness underneath me. A wetness that spreads like a drop of food coloring in water. The warmth quickly cools. Lily has wet the bed and her
urine seeps across the sheets. I don’t try to remove either of us from the puddle until the seizure fully subsides, and even then, we lie there unwavering as my alarm clock ticks off several
more minutes.

I think of all the nights when Lily failed to pee on our bedtime walks. How much stress this would cause me. How difficult it was on those nights to fall asleep, to stay asleep, frustrated that
I might have to take her to the yard in the darkness of predawn. So many arguments this caused between us. I always thought I knew better when it came to her needing to pee, but until this night
she had never once actually wet the bed. And now that she has, we just lie there in the accident and the minutes on the clock keep changing and the love I have for her keeps growing and we both
keep drawing breath.

What was so horrible about it?

Why had I always been so angry?

What was with my need to be right? To win every argument with her? To outstubborn a dog?

And just like that, all of the anger is gone. Released, like the emptying of a bladder, into soft cotton sheets as we lie in the wetness.

Lily tries to regulate her breathing, but it quickly turns to panting.

“Do you want water? You can drink mine.” I indicate the glass of water I always keep on the nightstand.

Lily shakes her head no.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “For all those other nights.”

“Wh-y-y-y-y?” The panting continues.

And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs
don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the
opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.

She wants to know why I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell her about my anger. I don’t want to tarnish my image in her eyes. Not now. Not with the octopus listening.

So when I respond, I lie.

“Because I’m going to have to give you a bath.”

Silly

Little

Lil

Monkey

Bunny

Bunny Rabbit

Mouse

Tiny Mouse

Goose

Silly Goose

Mongoose

Monster

Monster Dot Com

Peanut

Penuche

Pinochle

Sweet Pea

Walnut

Walnut Brain

Copperbottom

Crazy

Baby

Puppy

Guppy

Old Lady

Crank

Cranky

Crankypants

Squeaky

Squeaky Fromme

Tiger

Dingbat

Mush

Mushyface

Hipster

Slinkster

Slinky

Bean

Dog

T
he sun rises with a surprising intensity, a sign that June gloom has cleared the runway and July is on approach. We’re both tired, and it
would’ve been easy to return to the bed after our morning walk, read from a book maybe, drift lazily in and out of sleep. But the sun beckons with a blazingly confrontational message: There
is darkness, but there is also light. To stay in bed would be to embrace the darkness, the seizures, the octopus. To go outside is to embrace the light.

“How about we go somewhere?” I suggest this as we eat breakfast. Kibble for her, Kashi—per usual—for me.

Lily doesn’t answer until she finishes her meal and sniffs around the kitchen floor to make sure no additional kibble has escaped the confines of her bowl. “I’m fine staying
in.”

“I know you’re fine with staying in. But I think we should take a ride and see the ocean.”

Lily thinks about this, and I wonder how much she remembers the ocean. If she misses it. We used to go there a lot. My hope is the octopus misses it and will take one look at his home and crawl
back into the sea.

The car is warm from the morning sun, and I open the sunroof. Lily lasts about thirty seconds in the passenger seat before she climbs into her customary perch on my lap. She turns around three
times and I wait at a stop sign until she settles because it’s hard to drive when your dog is stepping on sensitive bits that she shouldn’t. As always, she quiets herself with her chin
in the crook of my left elbow, and we turn down the street heading west.

We hit the Pacific Coast Highway in no time. Where is everyone? It’s almost like an entire city has been so lulled by the gloom and the haze that they’ve all given up their identity
as early risers. Their loss, our gain. The sun is even shining as we emerge off the 10 and through the tunnel that gives us our first glimpse of the Pacific. This is a hard one to explain to
visitors, the weather differential between most of Los Angeles and the ocean. The beach is often the last part of the city to see sun. But not today. Today, the sun sparkles majestically off the
water.

I stream some music from my phone and crank it loud, but this seems to bother Lily—she has the look of someone with a crippling hangover, the thumping bass going right through her—so
I turn the volume down until you can just make out the music over the sound of the air that whooshes over and past the open sunroof. We pass a string of familiar landmarks: the restaurant where
Jeffrey and I had our first date; Paradise Cove, where I had lunch with my father the last time he visited; Trancas Market, where in my twenties I used to buy bottled water and snacks before
hitting a Malibu beach. I see a younger version of myself at each and it’s all I can do not to wave; I wonder what my younger selves would think of me now, if they would recognize me or even
care to wave back.

We stop at El Matador, ten miles or so north of Malibu, a beach that’s always brought solace and a certain clearheadedness. There were days after I first moved to the city when I would
grab a friend or two and a towel and sunscreen, and we’d go to this beach and you’d have to drag me away under protest at sunset. Now, it always seems there’s too much to do to
indulge in whole days of such leisure, but that’s probably just an excuse. What is there to do, really?

Despite the early hour, there are only three open spots in the tiny parking lot and I grab one of them. The rest are taken by surfers, no doubt—their internal clocks align with the tides.
The lot sits maybe 150 feet up on a cliff above the beach, and the views from the parking lot alone are spectacular. You can easily see the other pocket beaches, El Pescador (the fisherman) and La
Piedra (the rock). I’ve wondered why El Matador is thusly named. The bullfighter. Perhaps it’s the craggy stone formations that emerge from the sea. But they are less like bulls to me
than sea monsters. Like the octopus. El Pulpo, as a name, is probably less inviting.

Lily and I get out of the car and stroll a bit to the cliff’s edge. I pick her up and we survey the horizon together.

“So, do you remember the beach?”

“Is this the beach?” she asks.

“Yes, yes—down below, it is.”

Lily looks down. “I remember.” Then, tentatively, “Are we going down there?”

“Not today. Dogs aren’t allowed on this beach.” There’s a sign that says as much, but I think about breaking the rules. What is anyone going to do? Call a park ranger?
The police? But Lily looks content, and there’s a picnic table that’s not being used, so I decide not to ruffle any feathers. “I thought we could just sit here for a
while.”

Lily agrees, and we sit on the table and listen to the ocean, to the sound of the pounding surf that, because it is so far below, sounds farther away than it is. The muffled cackle of people
laughing in the water and the distant cries of soaring gulls add layers to the symphony.