Page 51 of Maybe in Another Life

“Can I leave her here? And meet the doctor here at six?” It makes me sad to think that she’d be here without me. But that’s sort of the point, right? I’m trying to find out who Charlemagne belongs to. Because shedoesn’tbelong to me.

The receptionist is already shaking her head. “I’m sorry. We can’t do that. People in your position often come and leave the dog, and then they don’t come back, and we end up having to put the dog in a shelter.”

“OK,” I say. “I get it.”

She whispers softly to me, “If you leave a large deposit, even a credit card, I can often persuade the vet techs to make room in the kennels. I mean, since we know you’ll be coming back.”

“You’re saying you want collateral?” I ask her, a joking tone to my voice.

She nods, very politely, demurely.

I pull out my wallet and take out my credit card. The receptionist stands up and puts her hands out, ready to take Charlemagne, but I find her much harder to part with than my MasterCard.

“It’s OK,” the receptionist says to Charlemagne. “We’re gonna take good care of you for a few hours while Mommy runs some errands.”

“Oh,” I say. “Sorry. I’m not her... mommy.” The word is almost laughable, the thought that I am anyone’s, anything’s,mommy.

“Oh, I know,” she says. “But you’re her person at the moment, so...”

“Still,” I say, “I don’t want to confuse her.”

And then I pick up my wallet and walk out the front door without looking anyone in the eye, because that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. The problem is not that I don’t want to confuse thedog. The problem is that I don’t want to confusemyself.

I walk outside and grab my phone. I look for car dealerships in the area. No sense in wasting time. There is a cluster of three dealerships just a mile and a half down the road. I start walking.

I’m going to cross one more thing off my list today.

Soon I might just be a functioning human being.

Icalled Gabby right after my family left. I told her my dad said I should move to London.

She asked me how I felt about it, and I told her I wasn’t sure.

Even though I haven’t lived in the same place as Gabby for very long, I somehow can’t imagine living that far away from her again.

“You have a lot going on right now,” Gabby said. “Just try to get some sleep, and we can go over the pros and cons when you’re ready.”

When I put down the phone, I did exactly what she said. I fell asleep.

I woke up a little bit ago and looked at the clock: two a.m.

“You’re up,” Henry says as he walks into my room. “You were asleep earlier.”

“Snoring better or worse than Gabby was the other night?”

“Oh, worse,” he says. “Definitely worse.”

I laugh. “Well, can’t you people do something about that? Some sort of surgery?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” he says, coming toward me. “You’ve been through enough, don’t you think?” He marks things down on my chart.

“How am I doing?” I ask.

He pops the chart back down and clicks his pen. “You’re good. I think tomorrow they’ll put you in the wheelchair and get you mobile.”

“Wow!” I say. “Really?” How quickly in life you can go from taking walking for granted to one day being amazed that someone might let you sit in a wheelchair.

“Yeah,” he says. “So that’s exciting, right?”

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