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Lana pauses now and again to let one of the dogs shit. It’s a shameless show that they take turns performing while Lana and the other two dogs watch on. Once the dog has finished, everybody is reanimated, and while Lana stoops to clean up, the dogs gambol about as if nothing has happened. “Good doggie,” Lana says. I lag behind on purpose, because I don’t want to get caught up in these chores of being a dog person. The upkeep of my own life is hard enough. Lana is good at it though—taking care of
things, that is. We moved into the city because she wanted to be closer to the yoga studio, the farmers, market, and the animal shelter, and because she was tired of taking care of our big old house. She wanted something cozier, cuter; wanted to be more active in a community. She said being active might do me some good, too. But the only thing I was ever good at taking care of was the yard. Thinking about our old house, I get uneasy. My buzz is wearing off and my belly starts to feel hollow. I look around and see the cat slinking ten paces behind
Who’s the Boss? By Margot Douaihy All journeys start by leaving, that’s what Tony must have said to Sam, packing the van, closing the door, the way epics begin. Don’t look back. In stations of the cross, you move on. It’s time to go, he smiles, pulls the key from his ripped jeans, muscle line in his arms, like a sea wall meeting sand on a Brooklyn beach too polluted to swim. There’s an open road and a road that’s hidden, brand new life around the bend. A theme song’s being sung, just for them. He’s not sure who sings it, but he knows a thing or two: boxing, cooking, secret blend of wind and lip to make a whistle. He’ll teach Samantha to dance—steps only the old folks know. She’ll need to learn how to speak Connecticut, make friends, shake off headaches after crying. He’ll vacuum curtains upright, iron a sandwich for uptight Angeler. Strange how it makes him feel like a man. Isn’t every departure a return to who we want to be? He’d never admit he is scared, he might not even know what to call it. 12
All that matters: they’re together, going somewhere in their beat-up van, hands taking flight out the windows, future as go as the green light ahead. Margot Douaihy has taught at Marywood University in Scranton, PA, and received her Masters from the University of London, Goldsmiths. Her chapbook “I Would Ruby If I Could” is forthcoming from Factory Hollow Press.
me (you see, if dogs gambol, cats slink). I want to tell it to shoo, but I like the idea of this unlikely parade making its way to the park. Besides, I know that it won’t follow us around the corner. We cross through the park. Up ahead, Charlie and Megan are barking at a Rottweiler that belongs to some vagrant kids who smoke cigarette butts off the ground. George St. George starts to bark at the whole lot of them and Lana has to drag them away. I take this moment to turn around and see if the cat is still there, but it’s not. “That’s right, fuck off, lady,” one of the kids says. When I get up to where they are, the same kid asks, “Hey man, spare some change?” I reach into my wallet and pull out a five-dollar bill. “Sorry,” I say. I don’t know why. The next morning, while Lana is out at yoga, I make a pot of coffee and go out onto the stoop. But the cat is nowhere in sight. So I go back inside, lift George St. George from the couch, and leash him up, relishing the look of disappointment on Charlie’s face. “I’ll outlive you,” I promise him. “You too,” I say to Megan, who’s done nothing other than to watch dumbly with a plush toy in her mouth. It’s her failure to understand me that I can’t stand. In Charlie, it’s the opposite. I walk George St. George to the park, where we throw the ball around. This is my attempt at being active. The other morning dog walkers are there and another shih tzu runs up to George St. George. They start to sniff each other. “How old is he?” its owner asks me. “Is it a he or a she?” “A he,” I say. “And I don’t know at all how old he is. I have no idea.” She smiles behind her oversized sunglasses. She’s in her twen-
