Seconds
Nicole Monoghan
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Gramps would narrate what he thought the dog was thinking based on her facial expressions and body language. She sat tall on a loveseat, her long face blank.
“I’m over this,” Gramps flatly declared, as the voice of Ruby’s thoughts.
I laughed.
Ruby got up in slow motion, walked in three tired rotations, long nails scraping sofa leather, then settled.
“Damn sofa,” muttered Gramps.
Gramps and I smiled at each other. I knew he was spot on.
He stroked the length of her long ear against the leather as if smoothing out a bedspread. A muted, exhausted groan escaped her throat.
“That’s nice, Pops. Keep doing that.”
We knew there were probably only months left with her. She’d been a Hail Mary to keep Gramps from hurting himself a dozen years ago. He’d often pronounce, “This one here saved my life.”
“Ruby isn’t the most clever of pups,” Gramps would tell people. “’Stay’ is pretty much the only command she has down pat.”
I remembered all those years ago how Mom had to pull Gramps’ socks on and bring him downstairs, force a couple bites of toast into his old mouth. For weeks he’d stay in bed. I was scared this would happen to Mom one day, and I’d have to take care of her, figure out how to make someone live when they don’t want to.
And then I remembered Gramps’ eyes overflowing instantly when Mom walked in the room with Ruby in her arms. She held her out, Simba from Lion King-style, like another grandchild. Ruby was all gigantic paws and butt wiggles. All ears.
Like a zombie awakening, Gramps laughed out a narration of Ruby’s first thoughts at the sight of him, “You smell like shit, old man. I like you.” That moment was etched like a family heirloom for me. Two souls who would be my forever favorites. He, the man who had another lifetime ago, parented Mom, now sick with sadness and she, the discarded hound mix found somewhere down south adjacent to a roaring highway. In the days leading up to that one, Mom would rush up to Gramps’ room, always with a panic on her face, having hidden his ties and belts, always fearing how she might find him. What he might do to himself while she vacuumed downstairs. Sometimes I think of Ruby on the side of that road, how she could have easily ended up a pile of mangled fur if the rescue hadn’t found her. Both Gramps and Ruby seemed to have narrowly escaped their ends.
We didn’t take pictures back then. When mental illness dictates your days, you don’t plan on remembering. But I remember it. I remember that second he first saw Ruby—Ruby licking him and Gramps letting it happen. Gramps, for one life altering moment, wanting to see the next second, and the second after, and somehow, the next twelve years of seconds.
Now Ruby lets out a longer moan, her amber eyes beneath too tired lids. But he knows what she’s thinking. He knows.
“Thanks, Pops. Stay another second.”
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Dedication
Our sweet Valentine. A long-legged, long-eared princess. In 2011 I decided our family dog was going to be a Redbone Coonhound, inspired by a neighbor’s new puppy. Never had I seen such a velvety red breed with such a pleading facial expression, and I had to have one.
There was no way to know the character our coonhound would become. As with people, dogs are individuals, and so I could not have predicted her idiosyncrasies. The way she gave love on her own terms–the “fly by” kisses, where she would randomly prance by and lick your face, then be gone in an instant, leaving you laughing. There was her sun worshipping behavior. She’d find any sliver of sunlight in the house and position herself accordingly. I can’t forget her “pride rock,” the top of the stairs, where she’d monitor the front yard, her paws crossed and dangling. Always a proper lady.
She had a deep, loud bay of a bark, as is the signature of her breed. But for as loud as that was, she was wholly submissive and soft-hearted. Not an aggressive bone in her lanky body.
She got twelve years, almost exactly. May 17, 2011 to May 26, 2023
I miss things I didn’t know I would. Her tall legged gait. The sound of her trotting along the hardwood. The way she was at the perfect height for me to put my fingers on her back when we were both standing. Stepping over her on the stairs as she took up an entire step. Just looking at her on the deck through our sliding doors, watching her watching wildlife in the backyard.
I miss things I knew I’d miss. Tucking her in at night and hearing the cat-like purr of her appreciation. Those ears in all their various positions–alert, flopped over, dangling off of a step, under my hand on the sofa. Oh, the feel of them in my hands! Her amber-burst eyes-soft, pleading, and seemingly sad.
The missing is ok. It hurts, but it keeps her with me. I don’t want to not miss her. She will always be my family’s dog, my children’s childhood dog. She will forever be our Valley Girl. Sometimes it seems impossible she is not here. She was here for everything. Then I remember: she still is.
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Nicole Monaghan‘s fiction, essays, reviews, interviews, and poetry have appeared in many journals, both online and in print. She is editor of STRIPPED, a Collection of Anonymous Flash (PS Books 2011), author of fiction collection Want, Wound (Burning River 2012), and founding and managing editor of Nailpolish Stories, a Tiny and Colorful Literary Journal. Visit her at https://writenic.wordpress.com/
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Posted in Boudin April '24 Pet and tagged in #boudin