Faithful

  “Remember when I had a Siamese fighting fish?” Shelby says. She was ten years old at the time.

  Her mom remembers. “Jackie Kennedy.”

  “That was a crazy name.”

  They’re in front of a huge tank of angelfish.

  “They’ve never cut Helene’s hair,” Sue says. “Did you know that? Not since she was seventeen. It reaches all the way to the floor. It’s still a beautiful color.”

  There’s a big black and white angelfish over on the side by itself. Shelby can tell something’s wrong with it by the way it’s tilting. If this were her store, she’d separate it from the others.

  “I asked her mom why they haven’t cut it short so it will be more manageable and she said Helene always liked it long. She brushes it for Helene twice a day.”

  “Helene always said her mother didn’t listen to her. She wanted to get a tattoo of a horse on her arm. She probably would have cut her hair short and dyed it blue if she’d been the one who lived and I was in a coma.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be you,” her mom says. “You were supposed to live.”

  “Because I’m living such a brilliant fucking life?”

  Shelby’s voice cracks, so she moves on, to the goldfish. She hates goldfish.

  Shelby’s mother follows her. “Because you’re such a good person, Shelby.”

  “I’m nothing, Mom! Don’t you understand that? You gave birth to a nothing!”

  Sue moves toward her. At first Shelby thinks she’s going to slap her again, but instead Sue throws her arms around her. “Love of my life,” she says.

  A group of kids head down the aisle, so Shelby and Sue move away from each other.

  “Stop making me cry.” Shelby wipes her eyes.

  They stroll arm in arm through the pet food section.

  “I wish I’d gone to Italy,” Sue says. “I always wanted to do that. And I wanted to live in California. Maybe not forever. Just to try it. A cottage on a beach.”

  “Really?” Shelby is surprised. She cannot imagine her mother in California.

  “And I wish I’d had more sex before I married your father.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m telling you these things so you won’t make the same mistakes I did.”

  “I already have,” Shelby informs her. “And more.”

  “But you have time. You can still do everything, Shelby.”

  They are in Shelby’s least favorite section. Puppies.

  “Let’s stop.” Sue leans on the railing. There are two pugs and a little poodle and a dopey-looking golden retriever. “I always wanted a dog, but your dad was against it.”

  “Why did you always do what he said?”

  “What makes you think I did?”

  They both laugh. Shelby’s dad is kind of clueless. He’s probably sitting in the same spot where they left him with Blinkie on his lap. Maybe he’s talking to his girlfriend on the phone.

  “I was in love once,” Sue says. “My college roommate’s brother. I was at Wellesley. But he was too much for me. I didn’t know if I could measure up in their family. They were all somebodies.”

  “So you picked a nobody?”

  “I already knew your father from high school. He was working in his father’s store. I’d see him when I came home during vacations. We weren’t a match, but I thought he was loyal and decent. Maybe I was afraid to go for real love. Don’t do what I did,” Sue says.

  “Okay,” Shelby says.

  “I mean it. Don’t feel bad about Ben. I let my life happen. I don’t want that for you.” Sue is becoming distraught. “Don’t take the easy way.”

  “Okay.” Shelby crosses her heart with her hand. “I’ll do it the hard way.”

  “This isn’t a joke!” Sue says.

  “Mom, I promise.”

  A salesgirl spies them watching the puppies and comes over. “Want to see one?”

  “The fuzzy one,” Sue says.

  Shelby doesn’t have the heart to say no. Her mom sounds like a little girl.

  The salesgirl gets the poodle out of its cage. It’s wriggly and excited.

  “He is so cute,” the salesgirl says.

  She dumps the poodle into Sue’s arms, and the dog leaps up to lick Sue’s face.

  “This isn’t sanitary,” Shelby declares. “They say dogs don’t have germs in their mouths, but they do. They lick their own asses.”

  “Oh, Shelby, stop looking at all the negatives. He is adorable. Hey, buddy,” Sue croons. The poodle is white with a tiny black nose. “Little bitty buddy.”

  Shelby knows a sucker when she sees one. Her mother is falling for the poodle.

  “He can fit in a tote bag so you can take him everywhere,” the salesgirl blathers. “You can take him to the supermarket.”

  “We’re not interested,” Shelby tells her.

  The salesgirl ignores Shelby. She knows she’s got a potential buyer in Sue. “He really seems to like you.”

  Shelby glares at the salesgirl, who is apparently completely oblivious to the negative vibes Shelby is sending out. The salesgirl leads Sue over to a play area, where customers can get down on the floor with a puppy. Shelby stands on the other side of the half door watching her mother tossing a stuffed animal for the poodle to fetch.

  “We’re supposed to be getting a wig, Mom.”

  Sue Richmond gazes up, bright-eyed. “I love him.” She sees Shelby’s panicked expression. “I know I can’t get him. It wouldn’t be fair. I can’t get him, then leave him all alone after I die.”

  The poodle clambers onto Sue’s lap.

  “You’re not dying,” Shelby says. She sounds unconvincing even to herself.

  Sue snuggles the puppy and whispers something to him.

  “Fine. He’s cute,” Shelby admits. “He’s like a cotton ball.”

  “I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Sue says.

  Shelby heads over to the salesgirl, who is letting some teenagers play with the golden retriever.

  “We’ve got a problem with the puppy.” Shelby reaches into her backpack and brings out her old ID, from when she was still the manager of a sister store.

  “I didn’t know you were a manager.” The salesgirl is nervous.

  “I’m taking that puppy to a veterinary hospital. I think it may have some medical issues. Ever hear of kennel cough?”

  “I didn’t hear him cough,” the girl says, flustered.

  “Get your hearing checked,” Shelby suggests.

  Shelby briskly returns to the play area, where she’s left her mother. She picks up the poodle. “Let’s go.”

  Sue follows her through the pet food aisle. “We still have the poodle,” she says, confused.

  Shelby grabs two cans of puppy food and stuffs them into her backpack.

  “Shelby! Are you crazy?”

  “We’re taking this dog. We’re liberating him.”

  “That salesgirl is going to get fired, Shelby. I won’t have it!”

  They’ve come to the checkout, so Shelby stops and shows her ID to an older man working the register. “I’m taking this puppy to be seen by a vet. The girl in the back had no choice but to let me take him.”

  The older man glances at her ID card. “Okay, Miss Richmond.”

  They walk quickly, and when they get to the parking lot, they run. They get into the car, laughing like wild women.

  “He called you Miss Richmond,” Sue says. “That’s a first.”

  Shelby hands the poodle to her mother. “Happy?” she says.

  “Oh, Shelby, he is the cutest thing. Your father’s going to have a fit, not that I give a damn.” Sue pets the dog curled up in her arms, his nose hidden in her sweater. “Hi, Buddy,” she says.

  “Tell me you’re not calling him Buddy.”

>   “Yes I am. And when I die and you come to get him, I want you to go on calling him Buddy.”

  They drive along Main Street. They’re not stopping at the wig store. Instead they go to the park and let Buddy play in the grass. He pees first thing while Sue and Shelby sit on the bench near a picnic table. Shelby takes out the rest of the joint she began in the car.

  “Are you going to get arrested for stealing the puppy?” Sue asks.

  “The cops have bigger criminals to go after.” Shelby lights up and inhales.

  Sue studies her. “I hear it helps people with nausea and pain.”

  “So they say.”

  Sue takes the joint, inhales, then starts to cough.

  “Keep the smoke in,” Shelby advises.

  “Kennel cough,” Sue says, and they both laugh. Sue inhales a few more times. “It doesn’t do a thing,” she insists.

  Shelby retrieves the puppy and has it sit in Sue’s lap again. She thinks of all the dreams her mother had. “Want to go to California?” Shelby asks. “I’m at your service. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “I don’t care about California. I love you more than anything in the world, Shelby. More than my own life. More than Buddy.”

  “You’ve only known Buddy for an hour,” Shelby jokes.

  “Love has nothing to do with time or space.” Sue takes another puff. “This is so weird.”

  “What?” Shelby smiles. Her mother sounds like a little girl again.

  “I really want ice cream. I haven’t been hungry for weeks.”

  “Let’s go to Baskin-Robbins.”

  They walk back to the car, Buddy in Sue’s arms.

  “Your favorite was always cherry vanilla,” Sue says. “I like pistachio.”

  “Dad always brought you chocolate.”

  “That’s how much he knew me,” Sue says, as if their relationship was already in the past.

  The puppy has fallen asleep, wrapped in Sue’s sweater. He looks perfectly comfortable. A white cotton ball.

  “This is my perfect day,” Sue says once they’re settled in the car again. She reaches into her purse and brings out a card. “I’ve been carrying this around to give to you.”

  Shelby feels a rush of some raw emotion she can’t place.

  “From your angel,” Sue says.

  “Is it Helene?” Shelby asks.

  “No. Helene can’t get out of bed, honey. You know that. Your angel is a big man. Like a wrestler. Maybe a sumo wrestler.”

  Shelby laughs.

  “He left his car running,” Sue says, “so he could make his getaway if anyone saw him. I was watching through the living room window the whole time. He waved to me.”

  Shelby grins. Her mother really is stoned. “And did he have wings?”

  Sue laughs. “Of course not! Let’s get serious here. Let’s go get our ice cream. I’m starving.”

  Sue hands over the postcard, and Shelby studies the photo. It’s her in her fourth-grade class photograph. There she is, in the front row. She looks so cute, with her long brown hair and her frilly dress. She has a big smile, as if she’s sure of a bright future. Shelby turns the card over. She feels a tightness in her chest. Love something.

  Her mother is stroking the little dog. “You’re my baby,” she says.

  The afternoon has turned gray. Rain will soon fall. Shelby had planned to take the train back to the city after supper, but she decides to stay and sleep on the couch. She used to read piles of fairy tales. Her favorites were always tales of transformation: brothers who became swans, beasts who hid their kind hearts. She always put her faith in animals rather than in human beings. After they went to Chinco­teague, Shelby begged her mother for a horse. Sue said their neighborhood wasn’t zoned for horses, so instead they went out to a farm in Blue Point, where they fed someone’s ponies handfuls of hay. It has taken her this long to realize how cold it was that day, and how her mother was shivering, but still stood with Shelby in the barn for over an hour.

  Shelby wants to spend tomorrow with her mother. She feels her love inside her as if it were as tangible as blood and bones. They’ll go out for ice cream every afternoon and try every flavor there is. She’ll start house-training Buddy. She’ll learn how to make onion soup, her mom’s favorite. Things will get worse, but there’s no reason to think about that now. Tonight Shelby will look out the window to see if her angel returns, and if he does she’ll ask him how he knows so much about love. She wishes he would come to her tonight, climb in through the window to lie down beside her and explain how it’s possible to love someone so much and still manage to carry on when you have to let them go.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Shelby sits on the picnic table in the backyard. It’s cold and there’s a light snow falling and her mother has just been buried. The past months are a blur. October and November were swallowed up by illness and hospitals. Toward the end Shelby left her dogs with Maravelle and set up residence in her parents’ living room. Her mother’s hospital bed was right next to the couch, and sometimes they held hands as they slept. Shelby found all of her old books in a box in the basement. She read the color-coded series of Andrew Lang’s fairy tales to her mother. They became lost in an enchanted cottage with vines growing over the window. It was dark and it was quiet and they could hear each other softly breathing. Every story had the same message: what was deep inside could only be deciphered by someone who understood how easily a heart could be broken.

  “Wake up,” Shelby would say whenever her mother drifted off as she was reading. “The best part is just about to happen.” But as time went on, Sue was asleep nearly all the time, with Buddy beside her in bed. Shelby had to pick up the poodle and carry him outside so he would pee. He always ran right back inside. My baby, Sue would say, how can I leave you? Shelby was never certain if her mom was talking to her or to Buddy. Now it’s over and they’ve left her in the cold ground. Shelby can’t bring herself to go inside the house. Her fingers are freezing and her toes are turning to ice inside her new fleece-lined boots, but she doesn’t care. She has the grill out, and she’s burning the old Misty books. She doused them with lighter fluid and they flared with fire and all the pages turned orange, then blue, then black. It’s over. All of it. It’s smoke.

  Dozens of neighbors are in the living room, partaking of the casseroles they brought over. There’s macaroni and cheese and meat loaf and chicken and dumplings. Comfort food. The same recipes Shelby’s mom used to make when Shelby had her nervous breakdown. Back then, Shelby had wanted to waste away; for weeks she only consumed what was pure: water, green apples, celery. Now, she opens her mouth and lets snowflakes fall onto her tongue. She’s empty and she feels like she’ll stay that way.

  Maravelle and Mrs. Diaz attended the funeral, but afterward Shelby assured them there was no need for them to come back to the house. She’d rather they take care of her dogs, left at the house in Valley Stream. The truth is she didn’t want them to see her in her parents’ basement. She is never going to sleep on the couch again, and her mother’s hospital bed has already been picked up by the furniture rental company. She thinks she spied Ben Mink and his mother among the mourners, but she’s not sure, since she couldn’t bring herself to look at anyone and see their pity. She hasn’t seen Ben since their mortifying date, when he walked out on her and she knew he was right to do so. If Ben had even tried to convey his sympathies, Shelby would have fallen apart.

  “Maybe you should spend the night with us,” Mrs. Diaz had suggested before they dropped her off. “You can sleep in Jasmine’s room.”

  “Mami’s right,” Maravelle had said. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

  But she is alone, no matter where she is, no matter whom she’s with. She was being driven home from the cemetery by the Diazes because she didn’t want to get in the limo with her father. His girlfriend had attended the funeral.
Her name is Patti something. She introduced herself to people as a friend of Sue’s. Shelby didn’t catch her last name, or maybe she didn’t want to. It’s the funeral, she wanted to scream at her father. Couldn’t you wait one more fucking day? Shelby loves Maravelle; she wishes she could spend the night in Valley Stream, but being with Maravelle and her mother would only make her sadder. She doesn’t have a mother anymore. There’s no one to whom she’s the most important person in the world.

  Shelby’s father is in the kitchen with Patti and some friends. Shelby doesn’t care that people say widowers with good marriages always marry again quickly. She knows how lonely her mom was in her marriage, how much she wished for something more. All Shelby cares about is that her mother is in the ground, miles away, all alone on a dark evening when the snow is falling. Shelby may have screwed up her own life, but she has high standards for everyone else, including her father. She expects people to act like human beings.

  Shelby certainly doesn’t want to sit in the living room and hear how sorry people are and what a wonderful person her mother was and that it’s all for the best that Sue Richmond isn’t in pain any longer. Instead she is burning her childhood books in the grill in the backyard. She wants to be alone, only she isn’t. Her mother’s little poodle, Buddy, has gotten out through the pet door. Shelby’s mom had the door put in when she couldn’t get out of bed anymore. She was afraid that people would forget about the dog, and they have. He looks bedraggled. “Hey,” Shelby says to the poodle.

  Buddy doesn’t look at her.

  “Hey, stupid, can’t you hear me?” Shelby says, then she feels horrible. Her mother loved Buddy, and now he’s sitting on the steps with a broken heart and Shelby’s calling him stupid. She promised her mother she would take him, and she wonders if anyone has thought to feed Buddy during the past few days. She gets off the table and goes over to him. Buddy looks down, as if he expects Shelby to hit him. She picks him up and feels him shaking; it’s all too sad, his chicken-thin bones, his fuzzy baby fur. He slept next to Shelby’s mother every night. Now he’s cold. Shelby tucks him inside her coat. She can feel him shivering against her chest. She’ll be damned if she leaves him here with these people who’ve come to honor her mother and didn’t even notice whether or not her dog is alive.