That Which was Lost

(This story contains some animal abandonment although it is resolved in the end.)

That Which was Lost

I sit up in bed and watch Aggie remove her dresses from our closet. It looks bare now, but later today I will unpack the rest of my clothes stored in the basement.

“I regret choosing you over him,” I tell her, no longer caring to be nice. She has worn me down to a rude, callous man.

She tosses a brief, nasty smile over her shoulder. “You’re such a child, Evan. Still crying over that dog.” She moves to the chest of drawers of which she empties three. The fourth, the bottom drawer, has my socks, underwear, tee shirts, and jeans crammed in one small space.

Finally, she pulls our engagement ring off her finger, gives it an appraising look, shrugs, and drops it at the foot of our bed. “Here. My last shackle is gone!”

I almost laugh at the word. I want to hurt her for all she’s taken from me. “Be sure to send me your forwarding address.”

Her look of confusion gives me a brief stab of glee. Is she wondering if she’s leaving too soon? Is it possible there’s something she could still wring out of me?

“I’ll want to send a sympathy card to the guy you’re moving in with.”

The flash of fury in her expression confirms my suspicion. There is someone else, and he’s likely been around for some time.

Do I feel profound loss when she at last stalks out without saying goodbye? No, but I do feel empty, like the bottom of a well that’s run dry. Or maybe I could describe it better as hollowed out inside, as if I’ve been through an exorcism.

I don’t get out of bed until I hear the door slam for the sixth time. I go to the window and look down. Her car backs out of the driveway, almost hitting a truck parked across the street, before speeding away.

The house should sound empty, with no one except me breathing in it, but it doesn’t. I go downstairs, hearing the echoes of arguments, the weighted silences between fights. They began with Beau, but they ended with incompatibility so monstrous it consumed our future.

I stop at the bottom step and stare down the hall leading to the back door. This was the final place Aggie allowed Beau to exist before banishing him one day when I was at work.

Her explanation for this betrayal sickened me. “We don’t need him, Evan. We don’t need dog hair on the furniture. Food that reeks. Water dribbled around his bowl. And, no, I’m not telling you where I took him. I don’t want you weakening and bringing him back.”

Weakening? It would take all my strength to make that choice. Even if I could force it out of her where she took him, I knew I was defeated. I didn’t know how I would cope without Beau, but then how could I live without Aggie?

Now, remembering that expression on her face, still so pretty, yet full of something else. Something I would take months to realize was malice. When had she begun to hate me? When had she decided to abandon our life together? It was so good in the beginning, but then it wasn’t. I hadn’t seen the slide until I lay bleeding at the bottom of the hill, watching her scramble her way over me on her way back to the top.

I let go of the banister, and that’s when I see it. Something brown and red in the corner in the very spot Beau’s bed had last resided. Just remembering how I let Aggie take my Beau from me makes me want to fall down and weep. Now that she’s gone, I could do that. She’s not there to criticize. It would not bring back Beau, but I had never properly wept for him. Not once, even after she sent his dog bed to the trash. I had kept the pain of loss imprisoned in my chest.

Curiosity insists I find my way to the object. I stare down. It’s a dog bone, the very brand Beau loved, tied around the middle with a red bow. Red, the color of Beau’s collar, the color of Beau’s bed, the color of my anger I tamped down because I loved a woman like I thought I should.

I pick it up, feeling a weight of grief far heavier than the object in my hands. Where had it come from? Why was it here now? I reel back. Aggie. Of course.

I yank my phone from my pocket. In my rage I stab each number of Aggie’s line with my middle finger.

She answers with a “hffffft. What do you want now?”

Through gritted teeth I spit out, “That was nasty even for you. A dog bone? For the love of God, you left me a dog bone? What’s wrong with you?”

There’s a pause. Then, “What?”

I repeat it. More venom this time.

“I’m truly at a loss, Evan. Are you drinking? At this hour?”

I hang up without saying goodbye. The air around me is as still as death. If not Aggie, then who? And how?

I go to the kitchen, open the refrigerator door. There are two bottles of the German beer Aggie hates but I love. I take one bottle, go outside, and sit in a lawn chair. The tulips Aggie planted last fall are red and yellow, bright against the green grass border. A breeze floats by. A yellow petal falls. Beau would have chased it.

When night comes, I fear I will have trouble sleeping alone Instead, I sleep as if drugged, but when I wake, I realize I am alone in a house meant for companionship. The closet doors are both open, revealing all the suits and shirts I moved back in yesterday. I shouldn’t have rushed. It’s Sunday. A whole day to fill.

I remember the bone and decide to get rid of it, but when I go down, it has somehow grown to twice its size which is, of course, impossible. I scratch my head. Pace back and forth. Try all the doors and windows. All locked. It’s crazy. Dog treats don’t grow overnight.

I call Aggie.

“Yes, Evan.” She draws out my name, ending on a downward turn. “What do you want now?”

“The bone. You brought a bigger one over?” I keep my voice even although I am shouting in my head. “Why are you doing this to me?”

She meets my outburst with silence.

“I thought you gave back the keys.” I wait for her response.

“I did give you back the keys.”

“Then how did you get into my house and leave another bone?”

“Evan, I’m going to hang up now. Pull yourself together. Get some help. And stop calling me!”

Night brings harsh rain, pounding on my roof. It should keep me awake, but as I sink into my mattress, I spiral down into brightly lit chaos. I’m back to the night I met Aggie. Her lovely face turns in my direction. The party going on around us fades into distant noise. I want her. I desperately want her. I am surprised to find out she may want me.

Once again the bone has doubled in size overnight. There are no footprints outside either the front door or the back. I must go to work. There’s no time this Monday morning for pondering what Aggie’s problem is. It’s so unlike her to go to such trouble just to get back at me for something. I will ignore it. No calls today.

I wonder if I should tell someone at work that I’ve broken up with Aggie, so I mention it at lunch to Marc. We always eat in on Mondays because our hatred of the company cafeteria never reaches full growth until mid week.

Marc raises his eyebrows. “At last you came to your senses. Aggie was never good for you.” He shudders. “My advice – throw out anything that reminds you of her and get back out there. Find someone who likes dogs this time.”

I do not enlighten him about Aggie being the one who broke up with me. I also refrain from mentioning the bone.

The bone doubles on Tuesday, again on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I go away for a long weekend. It’s a trip I had planned with Aggie but I will be fine alone, and I find that Big Sur without Aggie is doable. Walking the beach brings me not so much joy as a sense of serenity. I wish I had Beau back. I can almost visualize him trotting along beside me, sniffing at things buried in the sand, but I wonder if I deserve a dog? I can’t remember his pointy shepherd’s ears or lolling tongue without my breath catching. How did I give that up without a fight?

I call Aggie from a small restaurant I stop at for lunch.

“Is this about that damn bone?” she says. “I thought I asked you not to call me back. I don’t know a thing about it and furthermore….”

I let her rage on until she’s finished. “Aggie, I’m sorry. It’s not about the bone. I just need to know what you wouldn’t tell me before. Where did you take Beau?”

“Really? After all this time you want to know that? It’s been over a year, Evan.”

“But I’m sure you remember,” I press her. “Why should it matter to you now? Just tell me where.”

She sighs. “I don’t know where he is.”

That must be a lie.

As if she reads my mind, she adds, “I was going to take him to this rescue place, but I stopped by the side of the road because I got lost and needed to figure out where I was. He got out of the car. I couldn’t get him back.” Her voice is defensive. “It wasn’t my fault, Evan.”

I feel sick. Beau could be anywhere. He could be dead. “I should have never chosen you,” I say, but softly because she’s right. “It’s not her fault because I took her from parties and bright lights to long, quiet walks with a dog she hated and a life too quiet for her restless spirit.

When I get home late Sunday evening, it’s already dark. I don’t turn on lights, simply go upstairs where I sit on my bed and look at pictures of Beau on my phone. Beau chasing a ball. Beau playing at the dog park. Beau looking up hopefully at Aggie who is not looking at him but is holding one of his toys.

I can’t sleep. In a few hours I will be worthless at work. Sometime in the early hours I drift into a half-awake state. I hear a sound downstairs like someone scrabbling at my back door. It sounds like a dog’s claws, but I also know I’m dreaming.

The next morning, I see the bone quadrupled in size while I was gone. I definitely see it, can touch it, but I remember an article I read once about schizophrenia. Maybe I should invite someone over. If they see the bone, then I am fine.

I consider inviting Marc over under the guise of helping me fix the garbage disposal. I will break the thing before he gets there if he agrees to help, but I chicken out before asking. What if he doesn’t see the bone? What then?

I want to throw it out, but I can’t. It makes me long for Beau, who has probably found another home or perished in trying. Anyway, it’s grown so big, I can barely lift it. I decide the bone needs a name. I know it’s irrational, but I name the bone, “Hope” in as I hope I’m getting on with my life. I hope I’m not suffering some kind of breakdown.

If I’m losing my mind, nobody at work seems to notice it. I have a facetime chat with my parents. My mother says I look thin and when am I coming home for a few days so she can fatten me up? They are so obviously pleased to find out Aggie is gone, it’s a bit embarrassing. Until this moment I didn’t know they disliked her. They hid it well. They want to know if I’m dating anyone now. I tell them no. I need time. They mention a girl I knew in high school who they heard is moving to California, and she has a Saint Bernard. Message received.

When I hang up the phone, I hear barking. It comes from the front door. I go down expecting to see my neighbor’s Pit Bull, Joe. He has escaped before, but that’s when Beau lived here and Joe wanted to play. I will have to take him home.

The dog on my doorstep is a German Shepherd. It’s thin, emaciated even. It barks again. I open the door.

“Beau?” I whisper, knowing it can’t be him. Not after all this time. Not after I abandoned him to Aggie’s wishes.

The dog leaps at me, and I stagger backward. Then it’s licking my face and whimpering. Somehow the two of us are on the floor, and I’m hugging him, and his whimpering increases. I jump up and he follows me to the kitchen where I find a large bowl. I fill it with water which he drinks down with loud slurps. I pull the leftover steak from my dinner from the refrigerator and he inhales it.

I don’t want to look, but I force myself to search for the small scar on his side where he broke the glass in the door when he was going through his growing puppy phase. It’s there. It’s Beau.

I rest my forehead against his side. How far has he traveled to find his way home? Where has he been? I sit back on my heels, wait for my racing heart to slow down.

He allows me to lead him to the basement, to the tub he still hates after all this time. He draws back but finally lets me to lift him into the warm water. A sense of normalcy grows and calms me. The smell of wet canine and dog shampoo are too sensory to be anything but real. I bathe and blow dry him until his beautiful coat glistens.

“You’re going to the vet tomorrow,” I tell him as I dry and buff his fur with a large towel. He whines, obviously still remembering that word.

After more food, he goes into the living room, stops at the couch, and looks up at me.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s your couch again. She’s not here.”

I leave him sleeping on his side and go out into the hall. I look toward the back door.

I blink. Once. Twice. There is no bone.

The End.