Guinny

         God, he was completely wasted...but what else is new. Before I could see what was happening, he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand. I know I shouldn't have laughed, and I feel really badly about it now, but I was so uncomfortable with everyone looking at me, expecting me to say yes, when really I wanted to scream and run out the door. 

         I paused, breathing in a breath deep enough to make my rib cage shudder. I thought about his face, his eyes...I began again, my voice quieter than before.
         He looked so hurt by my reaction, even worse when I finally said no. But come on! It was my birthday dinner- I had only been 18 for a few hours! I mean, I'd like to be able to drink champagne legally at my own wedding, thank you. He stared at me for a long while after that. It was one of the most uncomfortable silences I've ever sat through. It didn't matter though. The whole ordeal, as messed up as it was, didn't sway him one bit. In fact, he said that he would keep asking, once every month, until I said yes. And to tell you the truth- I don't think I ever will.
         My words left an acidic burn in the back of my throat. I sat silent and unblinking, mulling over what had just come spilling out of my mouth. It was the first time I spoke about Michael's proposal. I hadn't told anyone, yet, about Michael's proposal, although after three years together I doubt they would be surprised. But Guinness was always the first to hear my secrets, my anxieties, my frustrations. Sitting on my favorite moss covered rock on the edge of the gardens, I stared deep into the rich, black soil peeking out from between leaves and blossoms. Guinness's ashes had been spread here five years ago, and here I was again, laying out the innermost workings of my heart to him, just as I had done so many times as a child. Thunder sounded in the distance, and I thought of the last time he had let me whisper into his ear.

         It was late October in 1999 and my thirteen year old self was curled up with my Golden Retriever, Guinness, on the raw wooden boards of the front porch. A thunderstorm had rolled in minutes before and the red-black skies were throwing nickel sized raindrops onto the earth with such force that even the strongest irises were bent over, bowing in submission. Thunder cracked sharp and loud, right on the heels of the burning white bolts lacing the sky. This was my favorite type of weather, and my heart beat fast and hard, in time with Mother Nature's drumming.
         Rolling over with a half-hearted flop, Guinness laid his head in the afghan that covered my lap, exposing his belly for a rub. Running my fingertips over his freckled skin, I noticed how much hair he had lost that year. He had always shed his red-gold fur during the summer months, but the past few years had gotten increasingly worse. His coat was no longer bright colored and shaggy, but more of a rusty-white, thinning and wiry, with spots that stayed bald after summer transitioned into autumn. He had gone deaf two years ago, and mostly blind last year. His milky grey eyes could still make out enough shape to get around the house without bumping into too many walls or chairs, but catching a ball or fetching a stick were now something for memories. I hadn't heard anything close to a bark from his jowls in a good three years, and his hips were failing him, too; Dad carried him up and down the stairs of the front porch three times a day so he could "do his business." The rest of the time he just laid on the floor. He had lost the motivation and the energy to get up and go to where his food bowls were; after we noticed he was losing weight we moved them closer to his favorite spot in the hall. Mom and Dad had talked about putting him down, but I left the room whenever they began discussing it. Guinness had been in our family even longer than I had. I grew up with him- puppy and child, now dog and teenager. We were mixed-species siblings and I couldn't imagine my world without him. Content in my ignorance and denial, I scratched his brown spotted belly until his left hind leg began to kick and he let out a grunt of enjoyment.

         Guinny, I almost got in serious trouble today. I whispered next to Guinness's white capped head. We were practicing for the NJHS induction ceremony and I cracked my gum. Mrs. Makenin started yelling in that strangled-crow voice of hers, "Who's chewing gum in my processional? Who?! I heard that crack, don't think for a moment I didn't. Okay, so nobody wants to come forward and confess, hmmmm? Mouth check it is! Open up!" GOD. She is such a cranky bitch! She made every one of us open our mouths to prove we weren't chewing gum. She really would've made an example out of me, too, since I'm an officer and all. I'm supposed to set a good example, or something. I swallowed it before she got to my spot in line, but Bryan Keenan was right behind me chewing gum too, and he wasn't fast enough. She reamed him out sooooo bad. He still isn't talking to me, 'cause he knew I was the one who cracked.

         Guinness wagged his tail twice, which was more than he usually made an effort to do. I wasn't sure if it was in response to my story or my continuous stroking, but it didn't matter either way. I was happy having someone listen to me. More so than that, someone who would listen without passing judgment, telling me what I should have done, given me unwanted advice, or turned my story around to focus on them somehow. Some say that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but this was even truer of dogs.

         A few weeks later I climbed off #5, the dustiest, oldest school bus Stephen Decatur Middle School employed, and started the quarter mile walk to my house. I couldn't wait to tell my parents about my speech that day at the Induction Ceremony. As secretary of the National Junior Honor Society, I was in charge of writing and speaking about the mission of the organization, as well as reading off the names of the new inductees. It went off without a hitch. I was showered with compliments from my administrators for my excellent speaking skills. Beaming with pride and half floating home, I paid no heed to my little sister trailing behind me, unnaturally quiet and somber. She had been inducted that day, so I assumed that the attention I had received had made her a bit jealous, that was all. She would get plenty of praise and adoration from our parents when we got home, anyway.          Taking the stairs two at a time, I bounded up the front porch and into the foyer. Once Sarah caught up and we had tossed our book bags in their usual spot next to the stairway, I spotted Mom in the kitchen and began gushing over the day's events. She listened quietly, nodding and "Ahmm-ing" in all the appropriate places to let me know that she was paying attention. When I had stepped inside, I saw Dad sitting in the living room with his newest issue of Surfer Magazine, but rather than repeat everything to him later, I just made sure to talk really loud. So loud that I could be sure he wouldn't miss even the most insignificant detail.
         Sarah had disappeared early in my story. After I finished I finally noticed how still and quiet the house was. No music was playing from the turntables, as it was almost every day when we came home from school. Mom wasn't cooking dinner or getting ready to work in the garden, and Dad wasn't leaving to check the waves before supper time. Something was amiss.

         "Kate, you okay?" Mom spoke evenly, picking up on my change from overly animated to suddenly still. She never faced uneasy changes like that head on, but attempted to diffuse the situation by acting like everything was fine. Her cheeks pinched, she forced a smile. "Got anything else in that head of yours?"

          She was without the usual springiness in her voice, and hadn't looked at me once when she asked her questions. Following her into the living room where she sat down across from Dad on the couch, I searched for what could possibly be causing this upset in routine. I hadn't forgotten to do any of my chores, and Sarah and I hadn't been fighting lately. Since I just got off being grounded for lying about breaking a pie plate, I had been walking on eggshells for the whole week. I purposefully made sure to stay out of trouble, which left my reeling mind to come up with no reason at all for the change in atmosphere.

         "What's going on?" I stared at my father, knowing that he, of anyone, would give me an honest answer.

         "What do you mean, babe?" Dad had closed his magazine and was holding his clasped hands in his lap, clenching his new reading glasses in a way that made my Mom cringe. He had broken four pairs in six months and looked like he was ready to up the count to five.

         "I dunno...something just feels different. Weird even." I clenched and unclenched my jaw, a bad habit I had whenever I was stressed or anxious. It would eventually cause me to experience several locked jaws and four years of mandatory wear of a sleep-guard. Clenching hard enough to emit an audible POP, I finally noticed.

         "Where's Guinny?"

         The air had become thick and heavy, making it an effort to breathe. I strained to keep my upper lip from trembling while my eyes searched my parent's faces frantically, trying to read their expressions. The silence lasted a millennia as I waited for them to tell me that he was in the den, or at the vet, or in the tub waiting for a bath...

         "Kate, I'm sorry but we had to put Guinness down today." Dad said it as delicately as possible, but it didn't lessen the sucker punch feeling that slammed into my stomach.

         "What? Wait. No- what do you mean? You killed my dog?"

         "No babe, it was just his time." Dad stood as he spoke, a lens falling from the pressurized glasses in his hands. "He was suffering- he couldn't hear or see or walk- we didn't want him to have to live like that anymore. He was 16, which is a good, long life for a dog."

         I tried to swallow the heavy lump that had been rising in my throat. I took a step back and shook off the encroaching sadness in exchange for blindingly intense anger.

         "You killed my dog and you weren't going to tell me!? You were just going to pretend nothing happened?!"

         I was in hysterics. I glanced into the hallway, catching the sight of two pressure rings on the carpeting where his bowls should have sat. I gasped for air and let out a ragged cry, letting the sadness back in, when I saw a stray nugget of dog food my parents had missed when they cleaned up his spot. Unaware of the hot tears staining my cheeks, I looked back and forth between them. Mom had pulled tissues from the Kleenex box on the table and was daubing her eyes from under her glasses. Dad was approaching me to wrap me in his arms like he had done so many times before when I was crying. But he had betrayed me, taken my dog, my brother, my friend, and kept the information from me until I had found out on my own. I didn't want his affection. Pushing him away I bolted up the stairs to my room. Mom let out a choking sob as I hit the top step, before I turned into the doorway of the room I shared with my sister.
         Sarah was lying on her bed, pretending to do her homework. She had obviously been listening at the top of the stairs mere moments before. Her book was upside down and her paper was still blank. I stood in her doorway while she avoided my gaze, trying to make sense of her strange behavior today in lieu of recent events.

         "You knew. They told you," I said, stepping forward to confront her.

         She put her pencil down and straightened her posture. Raising her sad, sapphire eyes to mine, she gave me a weak, apologetic smile.

         "No. I mean, well, yes they did but it wasn't like that," she admitted with hesitation. "Mom and Dad told me yesterday but asked me not to say anything. You had your speech and they didn't want you to be thinking about this instead. I'm sorry Kate, I wanted to tell you. I just...I couldn't."

         What she said was simple and, in retrospect, exactly what needed to be said. It was a reasonable explanation and I'm grateful that my parents didn't burden my mind and heart with such sad news on what they knew was such an important day for me. Unfortunately, I didn't see that then. All I knew was that my parents, the two people I should trust and respect the most, had ruined my good day, taken away my pet and confidante, and hurt me by telling my little sister something that obviously meant much more to me than it did to her. I vowed right then and there to never speak to my family again. The next year I would be in high school; I would make it through just fine on my own, graduate, move out of the country, and get my own dog that they couldn't ever take away from me. They would regret what they had done, and I wouldn't be the least bit sorry for them.          

         My silent treatment only lasted eight days out of the lifetime I had aimed for. My social studies class was going on a field trip to the Holocaust Museum and neither one of my cunning parents even looked at the permission slip I laid before them. They forced me, verbally, to ask for a signature. They had put up with my pouting until then, giving me both my moment of self-righteousness and my period of mourning, but they'd had enough. Guinness had been dying for some time and my parents hadn't found the decision to put him down easy. They understood that it had been hard on me, but they wanted me to know that it had been extremely hard for them as well.
         During the course of those eight days, Dad had gotten Guinness's body cremated and was keeping it in a gold-leafed box until I could come to my senses and start to speak to everyone again. I don't think what we did could be called a ceremony, but we paid our respects to Guinness the only way we knew how.
         Early that afternoon, Sarah went to stay at a girlfriend's house for a sleepover; she had finished with her grieving process and wasn't interested in starting it back up again. Mom was gardening, or pretending to as she tilled the top soil in the left corner of the garden in our back yard. She cleared out the mulch and removed any dead or dying vegetation, waiting for Dad and me to come outside to join her. When the sun had begun to set, sending tangerine streaks into the encroaching violet of dusk, Dad put on a Bessie Smith album and came outside with Guinness's box. We didn't say any last words or erect any type of gravestone. The pop and crackle of vinyl mixed with the sweet, melancholy of blues music was the only elegy we needed as we spread the ashes over the dirt. Mom, still kneeling at the edge of the garden, began to turn the soil over again, mixing it with the ashes, mumbling about how beautiful it would make her cannas and gladiolas next year. We watered the soil until no trace of grey soot was left, and went back into the house, arms around each other in mutual heartache and love.

         As the years passed, I continued to come out to the place where Guinny was laid to rest, whether I had a secret to share, worry to tell, or just a need for some peace to clear my constantly jumbled head. Sitting there talking about Michael and his proposal that day, I thought about how much more Guinness knew about me than did even my closest relatives and friends. I missed him more than ever. Because he listened, and only listened, I never held anything back when sitting by the garden. My words would become a stream of consciousness, so that sometimes I said what I didn't even realize I had been thinking. My dog, my brother, my friend...my personal therapist.
         
         No, I said quietly, I don't think I'll ever say yes.