I awaken to an empty house, save for our chocolate-lab-beagle-mix, Lolly, who pushes her way into our bedroom. She opens the door with her large, brown muzzle, excited to wake me up. It’s nearly seven o’clock when she begins nuzzling and licking my face. With her hind legs on the floor, and wet nose anxious to reach my silent, half-awake form on the edge of our bed, sleeping in is not an option. She does this almost every morning. It’s not unlike having a toddler.
I scratch behind her big, floppy ears and talk to her like a child. “Good morning, Honey. How are you?” I bring my face close but just out of reach of her long, moist tongue. “Lolly, you and I are both mutts, aren’t we?” She wags her tail in response. I reach down and aggressively scratch her back and rub her exposed belly the way she likes. “Maybe that’s why I love you so much,” I say. She nods in agreement, drops back down on all fours and points herself toward the door, directing me to follow. The other side of the queen bed is empty and cold. My wife, Tricia, rises every morning before I awake, silently prepares for work, and heads out before I ever realize she’s gone.
I slide my legs off the bed, pat Lolly, and scratch her one last time in the spot where her foreleg connects to her chest, a place hard to reach on her own. She lifts her leg slightly, balancing on the other three to give me better access. When I stop, she groans as if to say, is that all there is? I slip on soft-leather moccasins, walk into my home office, and sit in front of the computer. Lolly eagerly follows. She camps under the desk at my feet and curls into a large mound of dog, her tail completing a circle near her head. Thirty minutes later, I carefully move my chair back so as not to wake her. She gently snores and occasionally kicks in hot pursuit of a dreamy rabbit.
During the day, my communications with Tricia are sparse and mostly meaningless. There is the occasional text, call, or email that I do not immediately answer. Invariably, the messages are brief and all business. Is the meat thawing for dinner? Do either of us have a commitment that evening? Have I heard about the tragedy in the news that somehow might be closer to us than we realize?
In my office, I try to block out any vestiges of home. The walls of my space are plain. Only a wood desk, file cabinets, and shelving fill the room so I am not distracted as I work on my consulting business. If I am lucky, my day flies by quickly from self-imposed busyness. I operate under a self-induced state of urgency, constantly nagged by thoughts of utter chaos and abject failure.
In the evening, Tricia arrives home flushed and tired, anxious to shed her briefcase and change out of her dress clothes. In the backyard, she tends to different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, and squash, carefully watering and fertilizing, trimming and harvesting. We take turns cooking for each other, but more often than not, we consume our meals at different times or eat at the same time but in separate places, each retreating to our respective hidey-holes and comfort-spaces.
Sometimes we do things with friends, read books, or go to movies, but they are not the same friends, books, or movies. It occurs to me one day that we have been operating this way for most of our twenty years together. In odd corners of the house, we occasionally encounter one another and chuckle about the chance meeting. Other times we catch each coming from or going to some more important task and briefly speak. We are surprised to discover there are serendipitous and superficial things we both like, as if one of us finds and scratches a winning ten-dollar lotto ticket that we forgot we purchased.
There are many deeply held ideals we share, loyalty, compassion for others, dedication to family, a belief in things beyond us. But those ideals get lost in the drone of our daily lives and annoyance with one another. In the absence of a crisis or sharpened point to rally around, we drown any potential conflagration by pouring water over the tenuous thread between us.
Sometimes she looks at me and I sense that she might want to say something important, but she catches herself and the pointedness in her eyes fades back to an apathy that I will not pursue. In the polite hours of the evening, we return to our respective corners and watch television programs, never together. Sometimes the news or a comedy will strike me as poignant or especially funny, so I run up two flights of stairs to share it with her, only to discover that she is watching the same program or that she has dozed off early. I don’t repeat what she already knows or wake her from peaceful sleep.
Occasionally we discuss making changes, but the conversation never gets very far before annoyance or acrimony emerges. We each retreat to neutral territory and hold our positions like a competitive dancing couple that keeps precisely the same space between them as they move across a vast ballroom.
I usually end my day and come to bed after Tricia is already asleep. Lolly trails close behind. I fit under the sheets and blanket, careful not to wake the light-sleeping-early-riser that peacefully slumbers beside me. A recurring thought makes its way into my brain. It is the very least I can do.