Hunger for Relief

Not even forty-eight hours had passed since Leo’s hospital discharge, and the threads of her life continued to unravel. How could she not have seen this coming? She heard the rumors her father lost his coaching job because of the prescription pills she took and handed out like candy. The firing made sense. How could anyone trust a high school science teacher and track coach who couldn’t keep his daughter out of his medications? Of course, no one at the hospital believed her when she told them this was the first time she mixed alcohol and pills. And all because Jake had told her everything would be okay. “Nothing bad ever happens.”

But none of that mattered now. Her dad didn’t deserve to be terminated because of her. Leo was familiar with the pervasive feeling of failure. She wore a mantle of anxiousness, one she could never quite shake. If her dad losing his coaching job wasn’t enough, there was still the issue of Jake.

Maybe now he was her ex-boyfriend. He hadn’t visited once while she was in the hospital. He hadn’t called or returned her messages. The signal was clear. He never let her forget he could have any girl he wanted. He probably already moved on. After all, who would want a loser who didn’t know the first thing about being a girlfriend, and who passed out in a pile of puke the first time she went to a real party?

But the most terrible consequence, what crippled her, above all, was the loss of Sandy.

Leo was so overwhelmed with the ramifications of her actions, her hospitalization, and the complicated discharge process that, at first, she didn’t register Sandy wasn’t at the door greeting her with tail-spinning abandon. Her dad had not left Leo’s side since the hospital admission and was equally off-balance.

“Oh, no,” he muttered as he peered into his daughter’s room. Leo looked at her faithful companion’s lifeless body and burst into tears. Sandy’s last day on earth wasn’t supposed to have been alone, devotedly waiting, lying on a pile of Leo’s dirty clothes while she slept off a bender in the hospital.

At Leo’s shattered insistence, her dad drove her and a blanket-wrapped Sandy to the vet to figure out what happened. He examined her and told them a ruptured splenic tumor was the cause. The veterinarian tried to reason with the disconsolate teenager that there was nothing she could have done. He explained because the lump was so deeply seated in the dog’s compact body, often there were no external signs of this type of cancer. Only x-ray vision or ultrasound could have seen the buried lesion. But Leo knew better. If she had been present, if she had been clear-headed and not so focused on the turmoil of Jake, then she would have noticed. Something, an increasing lethargy, a dulled look in Sandy’s eyes, would’ve told her. After all, she understood her pup better than anyone. Sandy, in turn, unconditionally accepted and loved the whole mess of her.

In a few moments, they were going to bury her beast friend, as she used to call Sandy. Who needed a best friend when you had a beast friend? At least, that’s what Leo told herself. She tried not to be envious of the close bonds she saw form among her peers. Not that she didn’t want to braid someone else’s hair and talk all night, sharing kept secrets and hidden desires. But friendships were never easy. Navigating those complexities required learned behavior, and having grown up without a mother, they simply were beyond her purview.

Over the years, Leo wished she had a mother. One in which she could confide and ask questions. A girl without a mother watches closely. She observes other children being tended to, in the neighborhood, at school, on television, and while shopping. She sees mothers wiping ice cream off their chins, cooing into their ears, kissing scraped knees, dropping off cookies for a bake sale, and organizing themed birthday parties. If her mother lived, Leo’s life would be different.

Leo was on her hands and knees, frantically searching for something to put in the pinewood box with Sandy so she wouldn’t be alone. Her dad and uncle were out back digging the hole. The problem was, everywhere she looked, Leo saw Sandy.

It seemed her memories, at least the ones that were reliable and true, started the day she got Sandy. I remember the day I got my dog, but I don’t carry a single image of my mother, not even a memory shimmer.

What she does remember is seeing the scruffy-year-old pup, scorched around her ears from a house fire, come flying into her arms the moment the chain-linked door of the pound opened. She could still feel the heft of Sandy’s warm body and soft, tickling licks on her face. But most of all, she remembered holding her tightly as the pup squirmed in her arms and stating with as much force as her three-year-old voice could muster, “I want this puppy.”

Her dad had taken in the missing patches of fur, the scorch marks, and a jagged raised scar along the young dog’s torso. “Are you sure, Leo?” he had asked softly. “There are still a lot of dogs to look at, including some newborn puppies.”

“No, Dad,” her voice had quivered, terrified that something so quickly gained could be lost. “No! This is the dog I want. This is the dog of my dreams.” From then on, they were a team. The only time they were apart was during school, and even then, Sandy would accompany her dad or uncle and walk the three blocks with her. And afterward, the moment Leo walked in the door, Sandy greeted her with uncontrollable abandon.

Leo grabbed her favorite nightshirt, the one Sandy slept on when she was at school and a pair of socks that Leo had tied together to form a pull toy. She could still hear Sandy’s low, fierce rumble as she tried to tug the sock from Leo’s grip. That growl scared many people; such anger in a little dog. But Leo understood the snarl protecting the heart. She saw the playful glint in Sandy’s eyes that seemed to say, “Isn’t this the best thing in the world, playing tug of war with knotted socks?” Then that was it, wasn’t it? Every moment Sandy spent with Leo was enough for the little creature. With her father, Leo often felt she was interrupting him in his woodshop or when he was grading his students’ papers. And with Jake, when she said something stupid or when his friends showed up, he would walk away from her as if embarrassed.

On her dresser were a series of pictures. Leo peered at each one. A timeline of her life. Her Uncle Paul had been taking photographs since he joined the yearbook photography team his junior year of high school, a good long time. After all, he was a decade older than her father. Uncle Paul’s 35mm camera was always slung around his neck or in an easily accessible cushioned duffel bag with various filters and lenses. Every few weeks, a new snapshot would appear on their refrigerator until replaced by the latest installment. Exceptional photos would be enlarged. Her father made and stained the frames. Then they would hang them on the walls of their home. But not with deliberation. The displayed photos were more a function of space than being in any chronological order. Once there, however, they remained, taking permanent residence, memories of memories.

“Come on, Leo. A storm is moving in. We need to get this show on the road,” her dad called from the back porch. The screen door slammed. She grabbed a picture of herself sleeping on the couch with Sandy. She had been six. Leo raced through the small house into the backyard after him. Heavy, rain-laden clouds, twenty shades of jumbled gray, crowded the sky. Leo tucked the sock toy and snapshot between Sandy’s front paws and wrapped the nightshirt over her body.

“Ready?” Her father looked at her, and she solemnly nodded. With a few whacks, he nailed the lid to the crate and carefully placed the pine box in the ground.

“I remember the day you brought Sandy home.” Her dad was slowly shoveling dirt into the opening, trying to minimize the sound of soil thudding against the box. “I thought she was the mangiest, ugliest, sorriest excuse of a dog I had ever seen.” He paused and smiled tiredly, “But you, my three-year-old daughter—”

“Thought she was the most spectacular puppy I had ever seen.” Leo finished his sentence and took a fistful of the earth to release.

“I remember kayaking, about five, six years back,” her uncle, a shorter, stockier, older version of her dad, broke in. “Do you remember?”

Remember? How could Leo forget? On one of those flawless Oklahoma days with a turquoise sky that rendered the Illinois River a deep jade, they paddled. The estuary rushed over creek stone and felled trees, then, in stretches, became still. They had spent all day on the water, occasionally stopping on rocky juts to snack and swim. Her dad sat in the back of the two-person kayak. Leo was in front with Sandy standing, paws resting on the bow, a scout for her pack. And when they saw a bald eagle flying along the bank, Sandy could not control herself. Leaping and barking at the raptor, twenty pounds of frenzied fury ultimately hurled herself overboard. In the process, she caused the entire boat to capsize.

“What a sight you three were.” Her uncle chuckled. “The two of you looking shocked, soaked to the bone, with the little one paddling as fast as she could after that damn bird. We’re lucky the predator didn’t turn around and fish her out for dinner.”

“And after kayaking, we went to the Crow’s Nest for grilled cheese sandwiches.” Leo picked up the story as a sudden flash of lightning streaked across the sky. She looked at her uncle and dad, and from their expressions, she could see they didn’t recall the most memorable part of the day. She wanted to stop now, keep this memory to herself, but their expressions were expectant.

“Remember, in the middle of the dance floor? They were having a birthday party for a dog. He was thirteen.” Her dad slowly nodded, and she continued. “There were balloons and a cake, and everybody sang Happy Birthday. We all got to have a piece of cake, including Sandy.” Leo stopped the story there, unsure if they remembered the rest, the most crucial part.

She had asked Pete, the owner, if she could have a birthday party for Sandy. He had looked at her and promised, “When she turns thirteen, the place will be all hers.” Tears welled. Sandy’s party would have been this year. Leo swiped her eyes with her hand, feeling the grit of earth smudge against her cheek.

Leo started shaking, and her dad quickly finished burying her childhood dog. The wind, laced with a fine mist, gathered force, and the clouds churned as he started saying a few more positive words about what a great pet she was, a futile attempt to shift the atmosphere. Leo stopped listening. She was doing all she could to hold everything together. After all, that is what you did in a household of men. She had done that her entire life: hang tough, be strong, and push through. When her uncle dovetailed in with another story meant to make her feel better, she knew the tears were unstoppable. She turned and ran.

From her core came choked keening. She needed something to stop the intense guilt and emptiness. Day after day, she would hug Sandy and confide in her. She pulled open the screen door and raced down the hall. In the bathroom, she yanked open the cabinet and reached for the bottle.

“It’s gone.” Her dad was standing behind her, his tall, solid form filling the frame. “I flushed every last one down the toilet.”

Leo turned to face him.

“I’m done with them. I can handle back pain. But what I cannot handle, what I could not manage, is life without you.” He opened his arms. She moved into them. Enfolded there in the warm, complex admixture of nutmeg, cinnamon, and orange, she was able to cry, to grieve the ever-present loss of her mother and the fresh loss of her best friend, her boyfriend, and her father’s trust.

“I’m so sorry, Leo.” He stroked her hair gently. “I let you down because I wasn’t paying attention. But that is over.”

Leo wanted her father to continue, to reassure her as he always had when she was young. She wanted so badly to hear him say, it’s going to be okay, my daughter. Everything’s going to be all right. But no more words were forthcoming.

As the intensity of rain pelting against the small bathroom window increased, a sudden gust of wind rose, rattling the glass in its splintered, wooden frame.