ROXIE WAS THE ONLY ONE waiting up for me. She followed me up the stairs and into my bedroom, and watched closely as I changed and got into bed. I patted my hand against the mattress to get her to jump up, but she paced the floor next to me instead. I let my hand dangle off the side of the bed and gave her a half-hearted scratch behind the ears. Eventually she lay down on the floor next to my bed, and I fell asleep to the sound of her soft snoring.
It was one of those nights where it felt like I had only blinked and it was morning all over again. That relentless sun rising even though I wanted it to stay night forever, because I knew already how fresh starts work, how each day would be one more day since the last time I saw Chris, and I would count the days until the number got so high, I couldn’t keep track anymore.
I knew, because that’s what happened with Mallory.
Roxie was still lying there on the floor in the same position she fell asleep in. I sat up, even though every bone in my body resisted. I swung my feet around, and as they touched the floor, she didn’t stir. As I stood, I realized the carpet was wet. I leaned forward to get a better look, and I could smell pee. She’d had another accident during the night.
“Roxie,” I cooed. “It’s okay, girl.”
I crouched down next to her, my fingers moving through her fur, down to the skin, and then my hand pulled away. I let out this sharp scream—a reflex. Her skin was stiff and taut and cool. I fell backward on my butt, right into the pee. It was cold and it instantly soaked through the back of my shorts. But I scrambled to my hands and knees and rushed over to her, touched her chest and her face, brushed back the scraggly fur around her nose and mouth. I tried to lift her head, but she wouldn’t budge.
I didn’t know if I was screaming words or just screaming.
“Maia?” It was my dad. I heard his footsteps as he came running up the stairs, yelling, “What in god’s name is going on up here?”
That was when I looked up and saw that my mom was already standing in the doorway, motionless. Her makeup was done, but her hair was still wet and tangled from her shower. Both of her hands were clutching her chest, and her eyes were blank, the color slowly draining from her cheeks. Dad burst into the room, his face flushed, breathing heavily. He looked at me, then Roxie, then Mom.
“Do something!” I yelled at them both, even though I knew there was nothing to be done.
Mom stood in the same spot, not even blinking.
Dad walked over and knelt down on the floor next to me, placing his hand on Roxie’s rib cage—we all watched as her chest remained completely still.
He shook his head.
I heard a low whine—a sound that could’ve come from Roxie, only it hadn’t. It was my mom, standing behind my dad and me, both hands now covering her mouth, but still that small animal sound escaped. Dad stood up again, and Mom immediately fell against him. His arms folded around her as she buried her face in his neck. It was a silent grief—I only knew she was crying because her whole body was trembling. As she moved her mouth away from my dad’s shoulder, I could hear her saying over and over, “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
And Dad spoke into her hair as he smoothed it back, repeating, “I know, I know.”
I had never seen my mother like this, not even after Mallory died.
I needed to get away. I looked back at Roxie’s motionless body once, and then I left her lying there with my parents. I ran into the bathroom and stripped out of the pajama shorts that were now soaked with urine, and threw on the pants that were lying at the top of the laundry hamper. I went downstairs, grabbed my bike.
But I couldn’t get far enough away.
I was back in the middle of the road. Waiting. For a sign, or for Mallory, or for Chris, I wasn’t sure. But nothing was happening. The sky was all wrong, too clear and cloudless, bright and blue. Nothing like the picture, nothing like that day we met.
I rode past Bowman’s and the Gas n’ Sip and the school and Bargain Mart and the railroad tracks.
Mallory was gone. Chris was gone. Now Roxie was gone too.
At the stoplight I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I wanted to call Chris again. But I knew that wasn’t fair to either of us. I scrolled through my contacts—I knew the number was there from years ago, for getting ahold of Mallory when she’d let her phone die, which she always did.
It went to voice mail; I was expecting no different. I waited for the tone to leave my message:
“Neil, this is Maia. I know I’m probably the last person you want calling you, but I need to tell you something, or ask you something. Please call me back. It’s about Mallory.”
• • •
That evening, as the sun went down, Mom and Dad and I stood around a mound of freshly tilled soil under the big oak tree in front of the house.
Mom and I had waited on the porch with Roxie’s body wrapped in a white cotton blanket while Dad dug a three-foot-deep hole in the ground. He scooped the blanket up in his arms, and we followed him to the tree, and he set her inside the red clay earth.
We each said our own silent, private prayers as we took turns covering the blanket with dirt. Just when I thought we would all go back to our separate quarters, never to speak of this again, Mom knelt down on the ground, and sat with her legs crossed, looking out at the setting sun. Without a word, Dad sat down next to her. So I did too.
“It feels like yesterday that you brought her home, doesn’t it?” she said, turning to my dad.
He nodded and stifled a laugh.
“You were so mad,” Dad said, and whistled. “I brought her home and you came barreling down the front steps yelling at me.”
“Why?” I asked—I hadn’t heard this story.
“Because we had a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and we’d agreed to wait until Mallory was in school and you were at least walking before getting a dog!” Mom shot Dad a look that was filled with, for once, something gentle.
“And you wanted one of those golden retrievers, not a stray. But then what happened? Tell her,” Dad teased. “Thirty minutes later, your mother was sitting on the kitchen floor with the puppy, calling her Roxie, feeding her ground beef she cooked special just for her!” He laughed like I hadn’t seen him laugh in years.
Mom busted out laughing too. But as her laughter slowed, she sighed, and said, “She was with us through everything, wasn’t she?”
Dad’s smile faded then, and so did mine.
We knew what “everything” meant—she was there through the good, short-lived times, there through the bad years that fell on either side of Mom and Dad’s split, and then there through the excruciating—Mallory and everything since.
“I just don’t know what to do without her,” Mom managed to get out before losing her voice to the tears she was trying hard to hold back.
Dad gave me a look—we both knew Mom was talking about Mallory now. He put his arm around Mom’s shoulder, and I got on the other side of her and held her hand. It was a strange configuration, one we hadn’t been able to contort ourselves into until now for some reason.
“None of us do, Mom.” I wanted her to know that she wasn’t the only one hurting—that Dad and I were in pain too, just like she was. But I also wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone, like she seemed to think.
She clasped on to my hand and breathed the words, “I know.”
We stayed there like that until the sun was going down. When we returned to the house, I made us grilled cheese sandwiches and we sat at the table, the three of us at the same time, and ate our first meal together, without Roxie, without Mallory.
I went to bed before them.
I couldn’t sleep, though; I just kept tossing and turning. I got up in the middle of the night and saw that Mom’s bedroom door was cracked. I stuck my head in—I wanted to see if she was awake too, but she wasn’t. She was lying there, still in her clothes from earlier. But Dad was there too, still in his clothes as well; even his boots were still on. He was spooning Mom, with his arms around her.
I tiptoed across the room, careful not to wake them up, and I crawled into bed next to Mom, something I hadn’t done since I was six years old.
Without a word, Mom placed her hand on my arm and pulled me closer.