Chapter Thirty-Seven

In Dog Beers, We’ve Only Had One!

Polly managed to fit Joanne in for an early morning appointment. Even though Yessi and Polly had been together for a while, I’d never been inside her vet’s office before. It was as expected—lots of dogs barking at one another in the waiting room and birds cowering in their cages. The place smelled like a kennel. Joanne, for her part, took the whole thing like a champ.

Polly only kept us waiting for a few minutes. When she came into the exam room, I gave her a hug, and then she got right down on the floor with Joanne and fed her a treat. “Okay, guys. What seems to be the problem?”

Dax had clammed up, worried about his dog, so I took the lead. “Last night, Dax took her for a walk, and when she stopped to do her business, her back legs kind of gave out.” I glanced at Dax to make sure I had that right. He nodded.

Polly examined Joanne’s hind legs. “Could she get up?”

“No. I had to physically lift her.” Dax mimed that action for her. “She couldn’t do it on her own.”

Polly nodded and beckoned to Dax and me. “Can one of you come down here and help?”

Taking charge, I jumped down to the floor, even though I was already dressed for work in nice pants and a button-down shirt. I’d dealt with patient families of all kinds. Some people sprang into action in the face of hard news, and others clammed up. Dax and I represented both ends of that spectrum. We made a good team, at least caretaker-wise.

Polly instructed me, “Just pet her head and try to keep her standing still for a moment.”

She lifted Joanne’s back leg and set it back down, pushing her toes underneath her paw. “Hmph.” She did the same thing with the other leg, and then she gave Joanne a treat.

“Okay,” Polly said. “See this?” I craned my neck to watch what she was doing. “Normally a dog’s paw will automatically flip back out, the way it’s supposed to be, but Joanne’s stays like this—tucked under.” She pulled herself off the floor and wiped off her pants. I stayed on the cold tile with Joanne.

Then Polly gave us the face I knew too well, the “it’s all going to be okay, but it’s really not, because I’m about to give you bad news” smile. “It appears Joanne is in the early stages of degenerative myelopathy, which is a disease that affects the spine.”

“Can we treat this?” I asked. The word “degenerative” didn’t instill me with confidence that this would get better with time.

“There are ways to slow the decline,” she said gravely. “We can give her vitamins and supplements that may help. Since we’re catching this early, I’ll tell you exercise is a good thing—keep her mobile, keep working her muscles.” Polly’s eyes softened. “I went through this with my lab a few years ago, and it’s hard. I wish I could give you more hope. It starts with what you witnessed today, but then she’ll have trouble going up and down stairs, she’ll become incontinent, and”—she shook her head—“eventually she won’t be able to get up on her own. It’s a tough road ahead.” She looked at Dax. “For all of you.”

I glanced back at Dax, who sat statue still, face muscles tight, hands clutched in his lap. I got up and took a seat next to him, resting my arm against his. I was here for him and Joanne—whatever they needed.

“Well,” I said brightly, doing my own version of the Dr. Good News Dance, “I’ve been walking Joanne a lot lately. She started out only wanting to go a block, but now we’re making it four or five. She seems really happy about it.”

“That’s great,” Polly said. “Keep that up.”

“How long?” Dax said, his voice low and grave. “How long does she have?”

Polly frowned. “Sad to say, by the time we diagnose this, it usually means the dog will be gone within the year.” She pressed her lips together.

Dax’s head dropped, and he pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“I’ll be right back with the information about those prescriptions,” Polly said.

I jumped up and gave her a hug. “Thanks, Pol.”

She patted me on the back. “I’m happy to help, doc.”

I took the seat next to Dax and reached for his hand. He laced his fingers in mine. I held on, even if the action unnerved me. It felt like home. It felt like we were a real couple dealing with bad medical news together. My mind tried to flit to moments in the future when we might have to be there for each other as a couple—funerals, firings, food poisoning—but I wouldn’t let it. We sat there for a moment in silence.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “You’re better at handling this stuff than I am.”

“I’ve had a bit more experience.”

He rested his head on my shoulder. Out in the hall, a cat meowed.

This was very real and very nice but also extremely fragile. Yes, we had this thing connecting us now—the care and feeding of Joanne—but beyond that…there was nothing keeping him here with me. He could find a new apartment and pick up and leave at any moment, and I’d be right back where I started.

I let go of his hand and jumped down to the floor to be with Joanne, which seemed like the safer option, my pants be damned. “It’s going to be okay,” I said, lifting her head into my lap and stroking the soft fur between her ears. “We’re going to take good care of Joanne. I’ll keep walking her. We’ll get her one of those little pill boxes to organize her medicine.” I made a box with my hands.

Dax stared hard at Joanne on the floor, who gave her tail a wag. Then he came down to the floor with us. He knelt next to her and scratched the spot just above her tail, which she loved. He laughed as she squirmed with glee.

“Seriously,” I said. “Polly said one year, but that’s just an average. You and I are overachievers, Mr. Yale.” I raised my eyebrows at him, and he laughed.

“A year from now, she’ll probably still be playing ball in the park.” He grinned at me.

My face slipped into a frown.

He came around to my side of the dog. “What?” Smiling, he tried to look me in the eye. “I’m supposed to be the weepy one in the vet’s office.”

I focused on Joanne’s ears. “A year is a long time.”

“Not that long.”

“A lot can happen… You’re talking about playing in the park with Joanne, and I’m wondering if I’m still in the picture.”

“Are you saying you want to be in the picture?”

“I don’t know, Dax.” I turned toward him, both of us kneeling next to his dog, who, based on the cacophony outside the room, appeared to be the most relaxed creature ever to set foot in this vet’s office. “Darius…proposed to me last night.”

His mouth opened wordlessly.

“I didn’t say yes,” I said, “or no.” I looked him right in the eye. “He senses that there’s something brewing between you and me, but he says he’s been in a similar situation, and what we have”—I pointed to Dax and me—“will flame out because we’re in such different places in our lives.”

“That’s…” He shook his head. “Anything can flame out. Let’s say you and Darius get married and your plus-one gambit works for a while. But then he—or you—meets someone new and falls in love. Boom. Flame out.” He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him. “Muriel and me? Totally same page. We were so in love and secure in our relationship that we didn’t even wait to graduate to get married. But time passed, and we changed, individually, apart from each other. Boom. Flame out.”

I let out a slow, shaky breath. Suddenly, with the vet out of the room, Dax had become the take-charge person. “Being left behind—being alone—scares me.”

He wiped a tear from my cheek. “Like I told you before, there are worse things than being alone. You don’t think you’re going to feel alone when Darius chooses one night to go out on the town without you or when Rob spends every Friday night with his buddies?”

“But—”

“This isn’t about them…or me, really. It’s about you, Annie. People change, they leave, and they die. You can’t control any of that. You can only control your reaction to it.”

I patted Joanne’s head. “Says the guy who was a blubbering mess worrying about his dog.”

“Yeah.” He tilted my chin toward him with a finger. “I will be devastated when Joanne is gone. It will rip me to shreds, but I know I’ll be okay, eventually.” He touched his lips lightly to mine. “Look, Annie, I’m not planning on going anywhere in the immediate future. I’ve been working for years to make Farouche a success, and it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Yet,” I said. “You still haven’t experienced the Man on Main Street effect.”

“No, but I’m used to disappointment. In all honesty, you’ll probably be begging to get me out of the house in a year.”

Polly came in at that moment with the prescription information. She looked at the two of us kneeling together, holding hands, with pity, probably assuming all of this emotion was Joanne-related. “You can check out at the front desk,” she said solemnly. “Take all the time you need.”

After the door had closed behind her, Dax said, “Annie, I’m falling for you, and I think you feel the same way.”

There was no more denying it, even if the idea still scared the crud out of me. “But you’re so much younger than I am, and you’re not looking for anything permanent.”

He shook his head. “But also not about to deny myself happiness when I think I’ve found it.”

My eyes stung with tears. I couldn’t fathom going to either of the other guys and vowing to marry one of them while Dax still existed in my world. He’d always be in the back of my mind. And the front. And the sides. “I’m scared of what might happen—”

He cupped my cheek. “Don’t think too far ahead. Focus on you, me, and Joanne: our little dysfunctional family. We’ll take it one day at a time, no sweeping proclamations, no premature engagements. Yeah, it’s scary, and maybe it will flame out spectacularly…”

I hesitated, trying to ignore the feeling of doom settling inside me and Darius’s words echoing in my ears. This was what I wanted, and I couldn’t deny that anymore, no matter the outcome. I reached for Dax, pulling him toward my lips. “Or maybe we’ll live happily ever after by accident.”