We rehearsed Joy to the World as part of the Gaudete Sunday repertoire. I was reviewing the martelatto technique for everyone (“Remember, don’t lift the bell more than five inches above the pad, it’ll damage them. Keep it horizontal and ring straight down.”) Margo kept twitching her nose at me, and somehow her mirth spread to Parsley. Normally my dog kept herself snug on her mat in the corner during rehearsals, but she wandered over and belly crawled under the bell tables until she could plant her head on Margo’s feet.
I gave her a questioning look, and she just smiled at me. It set all those embers of anticipation crackling through my chest, as if we hadn’t been reveling in each other every night.
I clapped my hands to get rehearsal—and myself—back on schedule. Ignoring all my anticipation of getting her alone.
As we walked to my house after, Margo tucked her arm into mine and pressed close as if to ward off the tinge of cold in the air. Parsley danced beside us, full of her own pleasure about us all strolling in the winter weather together.
“Oh, hey, I made up my own Parsley song,” Margo said. “Wanna hear?”
My own tail would be wagging, if I had one. “Of course.”
She cleared her throat, filled her diaphragm, and launched in. “Hark how the dog / Sweet silky dog / Wants me to say / I’ll toss balls her way / Fetch time is here / Bring that ball here / Dogs young and old / Seek balls of gold / Sweet-dog, Sweet-dog.”
“Merry, merry, merry, fetch time,” I sang, and she joined me on the refrain.
Her mezzo-soprano and my tenor harmonized into something light and bright and bold. Her take on Carol of the Bells amused me. But the intent pounding of my heart came from a broader place than these few minutes together.
I’d lived alone for a few years before adopting Parsley, and as soon as she was in my life, I started singing to her. Sure, I’d sung plenty before then: joining in with something I was streaming; testing out a few bars while skimming for music to bring to a choir; belting Beyonce in the shower. But Parsley immediately became the inspiration and audience and co-host of the Karl and Parsley show.
So I had a huge repertoire of Parsley-themed songs. I didn’t exactly hide them from others—my friends, people who slept over, anyone who passed us on our walks. It wasn’t any kind of secret shame.
But no one had ever participated in this dog tunes thing with me. No one had offered us a song of their own.
I squeezed her to me and kissed her cheek. “I love it.”
January.
She was leaving in January.
Over reheated enchiladas, a comment about Margo’s mom reminded me to warn her. “Head’s up. I guess my family decided to attend Sunday’s service. They’ll be asking you to join us for lunch after.”
She set down her fork. “They will?”
I didn’t love how still she’d gone. I nodded. “My parents, a sister. Maybe my brother, too, but I’m not sure.”
“And they want to meet me?”
“Yeah, so it seems my brother is dating Matt the Grace’s niece. And you know what a gossip Matt the Grace is. So is my brother, turns out, because my whole family knows we’re seeing each other. The girlfriend apparently talked like it was obvious they’d drive up for one of my services, like she was doing for Matt and Paul. So now a whole lot of them are showing up. And they’ll ask you to lunch.”
Now she was even more upright and unfocused. It was like she was putting all her energy into navigating unseen currents so she wouldn’t be swept away. I couldn’t find the right lifeline to throw her. “It’s just—they’re curious about you. They won’t make it something big. More than anything, it’s what I told you before, about them not understanding me. So anything that gives them something new to talk to me about, they latch on.”
The look she sent me. It put me in mind of the wild horses that gave Mustang Island its name. Of course, unlike many of the barrier islands just north of it, Mustang had long since been paved and cultivated with resorts and vacation homes and golf courses. All that lost wildness and tamed wilderness. It sapped my joy to think of how the island could never recapture that freedom.
I cleared my throat, then stood to clear the table. “It’s not a problem if you don’t want to go. They’ll find other ways to talk to me. I am their son; they’ve known me for decades. It shouldn’t be all that difficult.”
Margo stacked my dishwasher in silence, giving me plenty of time to replay my statement. To debate. If I came up with more words, might I sound less bitter, or less stuck in the rut my family grooved out for me long ago? Or would I just scrape more mud against the moorings?
A passing motorcycle caused Parsley to woof, which I took as an excuse to give her a quick walk. Some nights, Margo accompanied us on this last stroll around the block, but she made no move to join us. I forced myself to sing to my dog as we went, but as quick as she trotted back to the house once her business was done, I don’t think she was charmed.
Margo was sitting with a cup of tea when we returned. She patted the sofa, which meant Parsley leapt to snuggle her. “That’s not who I meant, you big goof.”
I relaxed a fraction at her affectionate tone, and sat on the other side of the dog, who was delighted to offer both her belly and her muzzle for our attention. “So,” I said.
“So,” she agreed.
“It’s not a big deal that we’re together, right? That my family knows?” I kept my voice low. “I mean, Margo, you have to know I value what we have. Even though it’s new, even though it’s never going to have a chance to get old. Even though you’re in no way responsible for my feelings about it. About you. It’s—the thing is, you’re opening up some ways of thinking for me, and that matters. You matter.”
“I’m not staying.”
“I didn’t ask you to stay.” My reply was too quick. Too revealing of how much I hated saying the words. I paced myself and continued. “I wouldn’t ask. Nothing’s changed for you. Nothing’s changed for me, come to that. I still plan on a life right here. I want to live in Rockport. I want to repaint my study. I want the Church Council to approve my request for new music folders. I want a partner. I want to be a dad. I get how all that puts me on the wrong side of a chasm from you. I get that no matter how dynamic you and I are, you’re young, and you have all these other pursuits to, um, pursue. So that leaves us with a chasm, and I can’t fly over it, or ask you to fly over it to me, or … this is getting away from me. But I know, at the heart of the matter, that nothing’s changed.”
She scrubbed Parsley’s ears and didn’t look at me. Quietly repeated, “Nothing’s changed.”
And no matter what impractical fantasies I might dream up, she was only agreeing to the truth.