books on the second shelf from the top are arranged as follows:
You’re Out! A History of Baseball
(Mine.)
And Your Little Dog Too: Hollywood Dogs from Rin Tin Tin to Beethoven
(Hers. I came across it in a used bookstore and thought she’d be interested. She seemed to like it.)
Cooking for Two
(Ours. Wedding gift.)
Gray Girls
(Mine. A collection of interviews with women who were in the audience of
The Ed Sullivan Show
for the Beatles’ first appearance.)
Don’t Close Your Eyes
(Lexy’s. She had a weakness for horror novels.)
First Aid for Dogs and Cats
(Lexy’s.)
Put Me in the Zoo
(Lexy’s. A picture book she’d had since childhood.)
Where to Stay in Northern California
(Ours. We’d been invited to a wedding in San Francisco, and we talked about taking a side trip to the wine country. But the wedding was canceled at the last minute—we never quite got the whole story, but there was some kind of scandal involving the bride and the father of the groom—and we never made the trip.)
A Feast for the Eyes
(Lexy’s. It’s a big, glossy cookbook with complicated recipes and beautiful pictures. Neither of us ever used it.)
Thrill Rides of North America
(Lexy’s. She loved roller coasters; she always said she planned to ride every single one in this book before she… well, that’s what she said. Before she died.)
Clay Masks from Around the World
(Lexy’s.)
I’m Taking My Hatchback to Hackensack and Other Travel Games
(Ours. We bought it on that first trip to Florida before we set out for the long drive back.)
As I write down the last title, I hear Lorelei padding down the hallway on her way to the kitchen. I get up and follow her. I watch as she sniffs around the corner where I put her bowls. She licks her empty food dish, perhaps finding some microscopic particle left over from her breakfast. Then she sniffs the floor where her water bowl should be.
“
Wa,
Lorelei?” I say. “Do you want some
wa?
” She looks up at me and twitches her tail in a miniature wag.
“Say
‘wa,’
Lorelei.” I massage the folds of her throat. She lets out an impatient whine. The sound it makes is more
mmnnnn
than
wa,
but it’s progress.
“Good girl,” I say. “Now say
‘wa.
’”
She turns away from me and goes back to sniffing around the empty bowl corner, as if a dish of water might have appeared there in a moment when she wasn’t looking.
Maybe she’s not thirsty enough for this to work. I decide to up the ante. I take a bag of potato chips from the kitchen cabinet and give her one, then another. The sound of her crunching fills the kitchen. When she’s finished, I turn on the faucet. She looks expectantly toward the sound of running water.
“
Wa,
Lorelei,” I say.
“Wa, wa.”
I stand and wait. Lorelei watches me for a moment, then turns and walks out of the kitchen. I start to follow her, but by the time I’m halfway down the hall, I can hear the unmistakable sound of lapping coming from the bathroom. With a heavy heart, I turn into the room. There’s Lorelei, her head in the toilet, drinking long and deep from the bowl.
NINETEEN
D uring that first winter of our marriage, Lexy and I fought a battle between us. I wanted us to have a child. A baby with my features and hers. I imagined Lexy pregnant, holding our child within her, cradling it with her blood and her bones wherever she went. I imagined walking the leafy streets, pushing my son or my daughter—or both! Twins are not an unheard-of occurrence in my family—in a carriage, narrating the life of the neighborhood as we walked. “Look,” I would say. “The leaves are changing color. Look, there goes Mrs. Singh in her red car.” My child lying on her back, taking in the sky. I could almost see the soft curl of her hair. I wanted it very much. I wanted to spread a blanket on the grass when the weather got warm and to set my baby down upon it so she could reach for handfuls of grass and wriggling worms. I wanted to rescue a worm from her
You’re Out! A History of Baseball
(Mine.)
And Your Little Dog Too: Hollywood Dogs from Rin Tin Tin to Beethoven
(Hers. I came across it in a used bookstore and thought she’d be interested. She seemed to like it.)
Cooking for Two
(Ours. Wedding gift.)
Gray Girls
(Mine. A collection of interviews with women who were in the audience of
The Ed Sullivan Show
for the Beatles’ first appearance.)
Don’t Close Your Eyes
(Lexy’s. She had a weakness for horror novels.)
First Aid for Dogs and Cats
(Lexy’s.)
Put Me in the Zoo
(Lexy’s. A picture book she’d had since childhood.)
Where to Stay in Northern California
(Ours. We’d been invited to a wedding in San Francisco, and we talked about taking a side trip to the wine country. But the wedding was canceled at the last minute—we never quite got the whole story, but there was some kind of scandal involving the bride and the father of the groom—and we never made the trip.)
A Feast for the Eyes
(Lexy’s. It’s a big, glossy cookbook with complicated recipes and beautiful pictures. Neither of us ever used it.)
Thrill Rides of North America
(Lexy’s. She loved roller coasters; she always said she planned to ride every single one in this book before she… well, that’s what she said. Before she died.)
Clay Masks from Around the World
(Lexy’s.)
I’m Taking My Hatchback to Hackensack and Other Travel Games
(Ours. We bought it on that first trip to Florida before we set out for the long drive back.)
As I write down the last title, I hear Lorelei padding down the hallway on her way to the kitchen. I get up and follow her. I watch as she sniffs around the corner where I put her bowls. She licks her empty food dish, perhaps finding some microscopic particle left over from her breakfast. Then she sniffs the floor where her water bowl should be.
“
Wa,
Lorelei?” I say. “Do you want some
wa?
” She looks up at me and twitches her tail in a miniature wag.
“Say
‘wa,’
Lorelei.” I massage the folds of her throat. She lets out an impatient whine. The sound it makes is more
mmnnnn
than
wa,
but it’s progress.
“Good girl,” I say. “Now say
‘wa.
’”
She turns away from me and goes back to sniffing around the empty bowl corner, as if a dish of water might have appeared there in a moment when she wasn’t looking.
Maybe she’s not thirsty enough for this to work. I decide to up the ante. I take a bag of potato chips from the kitchen cabinet and give her one, then another. The sound of her crunching fills the kitchen. When she’s finished, I turn on the faucet. She looks expectantly toward the sound of running water.
“
Wa,
Lorelei,” I say.
“Wa, wa.”
I stand and wait. Lorelei watches me for a moment, then turns and walks out of the kitchen. I start to follow her, but by the time I’m halfway down the hall, I can hear the unmistakable sound of lapping coming from the bathroom. With a heavy heart, I turn into the room. There’s Lorelei, her head in the toilet, drinking long and deep from the bowl.
NINETEEN
D uring that first winter of our marriage, Lexy and I fought a battle between us. I wanted us to have a child. A baby with my features and hers. I imagined Lexy pregnant, holding our child within her, cradling it with her blood and her bones wherever she went. I imagined walking the leafy streets, pushing my son or my daughter—or both! Twins are not an unheard-of occurrence in my family—in a carriage, narrating the life of the neighborhood as we walked. “Look,” I would say. “The leaves are changing color. Look, there goes Mrs. Singh in her red car.” My child lying on her back, taking in the sky. I could almost see the soft curl of her hair. I wanted it very much. I wanted to spread a blanket on the grass when the weather got warm and to set my baby down upon it so she could reach for handfuls of grass and wriggling worms. I wanted to rescue a worm from her
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