The Dog Year (15 page)

“Belleville?”

“Five, three, five, zero, eight.”

“Orfordville?”

Lucy snapped, “Shut up, Charles. Jesus.”

“You shut up, Lucy. Sex is not an emergency. It's a leisure activity.”

“Not for everyone, Chuck-up.”

Sidney looked first at Lucy, then at Charles, and shook her head. “You both just turned into eight-year-olds right in front of my eyes.”

Lucy took a swat at Charles's knees and he jumped away.

Sidney pulled the flyer out of the box and said, “This is a sperm bank. Do you think he made a deposit?”

“Oh my God, do you think that's possible?”

Sidney smiled. “Well, why else would he give this to you?”

“Wow,” Lucy said. “Wow. Let's call the clinic.” She grabbed the receiver and hit Power just as it rang. Confused, she lifted it to her ear.

“Lucy?”

Lucy froze. She looked at her brother like she'd come upon a rattlesnake on a walking path, halfway between hot coals and a steep cliff.

“Lucy?” Mark's tinny voice came through the receiver. “Are you there?”

Without turning her head, Lucy darted her eyes from Charles to Sidney and back again.

“Okay,” Mark said. “You don't have to talk. Just listen to me. I know. It wasn't how I pictured it.” He laughed an uneasy laugh. “But you're great. Lucy. I think you're, uh, great.”

A thrill traveled up her spine. She hung up.

There was a silence in the room. Lucy blushed.

Sidney said, “Charles, get your phone and call the clinic. Ask for information.”

“And say what? I can't just call and ask if Richard Lubers made a sperm deposit and if we can keep it in the freezer at home.”

Sidney nodded. “We should go down there in person. But it's too late today. It's already six o'clock. Look on that pamphlet. Is there account information, or a receipt or something?”

Charles laughed. “Do you think they give you one of those little bank books we used to get when we were young? Before everything was done electronically? You know, for deposits?” He paused. “You know, this gives new meaning to the term ‘withdrawal method.'”

Sidney looked at him. “You're being kind of a douche bag, Charles.”

“Yeah, Charles,” Lucy said.

“Sorry, girls, but this is the most exciting time in Lucy's life since . . . I would say ever. Pardon me for enjoying it a little.”

“You just got upgraded from douche to dick,” said Lucy.

“Fine,” Charles huffed. “I'm leaving. Call me when you grow up, Lucy.” He swept out of the room and slammed the screen door. Twice, for drama.

Lucy shouted, “God, Babs, you are such a queen.” She looked at Sidney. “Forgive him. Usually he eschews stereotypes, but occasionally, he goes in for the theatrical entrance and exit.” Miserably, she added, “He'll be back tomorrow with an offer of hummus and a board game.” She sat back on the couch and rubbed her face with her hands. “Am I that far out of it? Does everyone have sex at the drop of a hat now? I mean, is it really no big thing to ‘stop, drop, and roll' in the middle of the day with all the lights on, and your skirt hiked to your waist?”

Sidney turned to her. “Now that's an image. Okay, so listen. What part's not okay with you? You're not . . . uh . . . involved with anyone else, right? And you like him.”

“Sure, I like him. I like my pastor, too, but I'm not gonna bang him in his living room. Do you think Mark does that a lot?”

“I don't know him. What do you think?”

“I haven't any idea. He sure knew what he was doing, though.” Lucy remembered the feel of Mark's hands on her skin, on the small of her back.

“Is that what you're worried about? That he's done this before?”

“I don't want to be a number to anyone, or a screw-the-ugly-widow mercy fuck.”

Sidney squinted. “Have you looked at yourself since high school? There's nothing ugly about you, and I would venture a guess that there never was.”

“You wouldn't understand.”

Sidney sat up straight. There was an edge to her voice now. “Do you see anyone but yourself? Wake up.
Everyone
is the walking wounded. You don't have the corner on suffering. Not by a long shot.” She grabbed her crocheted bag from the couch and swung it over her shoulder. With her knobby fingers she pulled her thinning hair out from under the strap and then took out her keys.

“A man finds you desirable. And your beloved late husband really loved you. Poor ugly you, Dr. Peterman. Poor smart, gifted, independent, financially secure you.”

Lucy inhaled sharply and Sidney went on. “Your brother's not the only drama queen in your family.” Turning, she slammed out the front door, then opened it again and slammed it a second time.

Little Dog trotted over and propped her front legs onto Lucy's knees. Her large brown eyes said, unequivocally,
When's dinner?

“I can see that you really want to be fed,” Lucy said. “But what you're really saying is, ‘I will never leave you.'”

T
he next morning Lucy lay in bed and listened to the kitchen faucet drip. An hour later she was still listening. Little Dog sat by the front door, whining. The days were getting shorter and shorter, and sometime during the drama of her life in the past weeks, she could sense the sounds and smells of Indian summer giving way to the ones of winter. There was more of a snap in the air, and the imminent promise of snow.

In her pajamas, she leaned on the front doorjamb and eyed a potted mum on her front stoop: gloriously orange and yellow with green foliage and a grosgrain plaid ribbon encircling the gold foil-covered pot. A grinning burlap scarecrow reinforced by a shish-kabob stick held a sign that read,
I'M SORRY.

She touched the card, flipped it over. Mark. The memory of his hands shoved Richard's face from her mind. The memory lingered for a moment until shame, like her old high school principal, put that memory into detention, where it belonged.

Her neighbor's garden gnome, fat in his blue-belted top and Santalike beard, smirked at her as if to say,
How the mighty have fallen
. It was true she had felt a little superior to her neighbors. She'd holed up with her husband, her job, and her pregnancy like the member of a Waco, Texas, cult. Now it seemed the gnome was gloating—a tubby sentry, keeping track of the number of people who wandered in and out of Lucy's life. Lucy grabbed the pot of mums and turned to the gnome. “Oh shut up, you little shit,” she said under her breath, and walked into her house.

The kitchen smelled of onions from the night before, when Charles was over. She scooped up the ice tray, the black and white wrapping paper, and the brochure, and shuffled—for the first time without any palpable anxiety—into the room she had shared with her husband. Climbing into the bed, Lucy stared at the stain of Africa above her. Thanksgiving was coming, then Christmas, then New Year's.
How could she possibly get through another year?
Richard used to say to her when she made fun of his penchant for obsessive organization,
Routine helps you see when something really special is happening. Label your files and alphabetize your folders, and the next thing you know it's strawberry season.
She turned on her side and examined the Post-it.
Just in case. R.

She sat up with a thought. Maybe there were more things lying around, more messages from Richard.
Little Dog scrambled to attention. Dropping to her knees, Lucy looked under the bed and pulled out a rolled sock. Nothing. In the closet she searched through Richard's sweaters, opened shoeboxes, and shoved aside a fleece jacket that had fallen to the floor. Kicking hospital supplies out of her path, she searched his dresser drawers, pushing aside boxer shorts and socks, and pulling out T-shirts by their shoulders. She returned to the closet, going over every inch with the thoroughness of an Iowa tornado. Nothing. Breathless, she scanned the room. On the floor, between the legs of the bedside table, sat a box where Richard kept his reading glasses, his earplugs, and a small pile of abandoned books. Inside it, she saw Richard's iPod, kiwi-colored with a charger forever docked and charging, and ear buds.

She powered it up and stuck the earphones into her ears. The first song was by Electric Light Orchestra, a band from the seventies. “Mr. Blue Sky.” “Sun is shinin' in the sky. There ain't a cloud in sight.”
The song went on its cheerful way all the way to the final verse. Still on the floor, she hit Play and listened again, and then again.

*   *   *

When Lucy woke up, she heard what sounded like a birthday party of birds flitting, tweeting, and flirting outside the window. Mrs. Bobo, perched on her favorite windowsill, watched silently, her tail twitching wildly. It jerked like a broken live wire, that tail, promising any small animal, bird or otherwise, a quick death by cat if caught.

Lucy pushed herself to a seated position. The brochure about the sperm bank was stuck to her cheek with sticky sleep drool. Shaking her head, she peeled it off and watched Little Dog yawn. “It's a new day, girl. I've got you, music, and some potential sperm. What else could a girl want?” The earphones she'd had in her ears lay on her pillow, connected to the now-dead iPod. She glanced around the shambles of her room, plugged the iPod into the charging station, and scooted out of bed into the hall. Grabbing her phone, Lucy opened the brochure and read.
Men commonly choose sperm-banking if about to undergo treatments or take medications that may affect sperm production.

Lucy pressed a hand to her chest and skimmed the rest of the text, looking for the part where she could learn about defrosting Richard's DNA, using it, and getting on with getting him back into her life. Near the bottom she read the words,
When you are ready to use the sperm, you must notify the bank in writing. The bank then will release the specimen, shipping it to whatever physician you request.

“Screw writing,” she said, and punched the number of the clinic into her phone. Almost immediately she heard a recorded voice in a surprising British accent.

“Thank you for calling Cryobanking Conception Clinics. If this is an emergency, press One.”

Lucy considered this option and decided that pushing the emergency button would be over the top. What would she say?
Help, I need sperm. STAT.
The British woman's voice continued.

“If this is not an emergency, please call back during regular business hours. CC Clinics is currently closed for the weekend.” She pronounced
weekend
with an emphasis on the second syllable—week
end
—making Lucy feel as though she were in a movie with Hugh Grant, embarking on an English romance, and that this was a lovely lark of a call, likely to end in happily ever after. She grabbed her calendar. Saturday. She couldn't go back to sleep now, and in vitro fertilization was pretty much out for the week
end
.

She threw herself back into her bedroom and grabbed the wrapping paper. Little Dog peeked in just as Lucy rushed through the bedroom door. “Maybe there's another present,” she said out loud. “C'mon, Lucy. You got this. Systematic.” For the next hour and a half she searched every drawer, cubby, and cupboard in her cozy, if elderly house. When she found herself examining the space under the basement stairs with an otoscope she'd purchased for her pediatric rotation in med school, she came to her senses. “This is ridiculous,” she said aloud. She put down the otoscope and took another look at the loot she'd unearthed: sixty-seven cents she'd discovered in an old pair of jeans, and Richard's pre-exercise inhaler. She took a puff from it, then another, shrugged, and said to Little Dog, “Just for fun.”

And then, still dressed in the clothes she'd slept in, Lucy grabbed the iPod, clipped the leash onto the only friend that would have her lately, and walked out the door.

*   *   *

Listening to the music in her new-to-her iPod, Lucy smiled and shook her head, reflecting on Richard's eclectic and almost uncanny music choices: “Everlasting Love” by Gloria Estefan and “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull. “Say Hey (I Love You)” by Michael Franti, and the classic Barry White song “You're the First, the Last, My Everything.” Lucy did a little hop step. “My kind of wonderful, that's what you are.” She skipped over a crack in the sidewalk. “Your love I'll keep forever more.” Whenever Sidney popped into her mind, and Charles, and God forbid, Mark, she visualized their faces and gently pushed them away, actually using her hand to swat the air. Anyone looking out his window would have seen a well-dressed woman performing a kind of tai chi hip-hop. The golden late-morning sunshine felt like a spotlight, and the leaves applauded her enthusiasm.

If “It's Raining Men” seemed like an odd choice, Lucy ignored it and played it again for good measure. “Bad Day,” by that Canadian singer she liked but whose name she could never remember, started in her ear. “Where is the moment we needed the most?”

“
Jesus,” she said aloud, “I'm not loving this one.” She turned the iPod over to click past the song and didn't notice the cruiser slowing down, or the open window, or the look on Mark's face.

“Lucy.”

Lucy pulled up short, met Mark's eyes, and automatically touched her hair. “Don't you ever work?”

“I am working. See the big car? Can I talk to you?”

You're falling to pieces every time.
“No. Just forget it. I'm a big girl.”

“What does that mean?”

Lucy gave him an incredulous look and kept walking. He rolled the cruiser forward. “I don't want to forget it.”

Lucy refused to look at him.
You say you don't know.

“I wish I'd done things differently. We could have had dinner.”

“And maybe we could have used a condom.” Lucy planted her feet on the sidewalk and finally turned to face him. “I'm sure you're not new to this, but I am. I am new to this, and I don't like anything about it.”

Mark braked. Looked away. “I'm not gonna lie. That hurt.”

“I doubt that.”

“What did I do that was so wrong, Lucy? Want you? Is that it? How did your husband ever get past your defenses? That's what I want to know.”

Lucy stared at him. Opened her mouth and shut it. The song continued in her ear, like a good musical friend who was just trying to help. She pulled an ear bud out and took a deep breath. “I know I'm doing some things wrong,
a lot
of things wrong. It's kind of a cliché, you know, that surgeons are not good with people.”

“Help me out, Lucy. I don't know what we're talking about. I didn't think I was pushing you.”

Lucy spoke in a near whisper. “Did it look like I was being pushed?” Before he could respond, she said, “That's why I'm done with people for a while. I don't know what I'm doing.”

Mark shook his head. “So you're going back into hiding then?”

“You don't know me well enough to say that.”

“I know me, and you and I aren't that different. I know all about hiding.”

“I'm not hiding. I've got a dog. My music.” She said
my music
like she was Michael Jackson or Elton John, talking about the songs she'd written. “And I've got the potential, finally, for something bigger.” She touched the pocket where she'd put the brochure, and imagined the microscopic sperm waiting for her, waiting to bring Richard back.

“Could you just stop walking?” Mark asked. “Could we go someplace to talk?”

“Nope, and I'll go to AA on Tuesdays and Thursdays, just so it isn't awkward.”

He shook his head. “You are a piece of work. You know that?”

She pointed to her earphones like they were an important telephone call and turned the corner.