Melvin

Rachel watched as her bedroom filled with soft blue light. A plump turtledove began the song of a Southern morning. The dove kept time for the cadences in her husband's breaths. Rachel reveled in the stirrings of a new day. The tacos to be served that night, her niece's baby shower invitations, the gray spots on the carpet and lesson plans for her student struggling to pronounce "sh" words all took their place in her brain, ready to take the stage. A shuffle in the kitchen prevented the curtain from being raised. Rachel crawled out of her carefully woven cocoon of blankets and felt the cool of December on her skin. Her feet led her the twenty steps from her bed to the kitchen tile.

"Ah no," she moaned.

Her morning reverie had encroached on Melvin. When Melvin was a velvety ball of warmth, her friends warned her that she would scurry out of bed in the morning and land in the kitchen with cold, damp socks. From his first night in the Lovett home, issues of the Birmingham Sun covered her kitchen floor. Her husband felt that Melvin provided the only suitable use for the journal as it had not produced an ounce of worthy journalism in decades. In time, the newspapers were retired and Melvin was awarded a private toileting space in the laundry room. However, in recent years, Rachel rose before the blue light to tend to Melvin. She flicked on the light above the kitchen island.

"What?"

The damp fuzzy sock on her right foot hung like a wounded animal. Rachel spun around to find a tiny creek of red around her breakfast table leading her to a chocolate brown Labrador leaning against an oak chair.

"He knows," she started and stopped. An important fact needed to be expressed. "He knows the kitchen island juts out just above his water bowl. He's been ducking his head instinctively since we brought him home. Paul moved the bowl I don't know how many times but he always scoots it back against the island. We taped bubble wrap to it last month. It fell off and..."

"Melvin is going to be okay. He's going to be aware of his soreness but fortunately, his tongue can't get anywhere near the gash. He's not a gecko, Rach". Dr. Mark looked up to be rewarded by his cousin's eyeroll. Dr. Markus Greer gently stroked Melvin's back activating a nearly toothless grin.

"He's one hundred forty years old, " Mark said. She noted the emphasis on forty.

"Don't !" her hand raised. "You know he's twenty. You know better than either one of us he is not a puppy but he certainly isn't...You know what? Never mind. Thanks Mark. He can stay here with you and Paul will get him on the way home today."

"He's awesome. You've been a good boy, the best boy," Mark said to Melvin. Melvin's head turned to not quite face Mark's. His once steely gaze that chased ducks at the pond behind his home was watery and searching the darkness to find the sound.

You've been a "good boy"? No, he hasn't "been" anything. He's still here, she thought.

"I will text you if anything happens."

"Nothing's going to happen, Mark. He's not a gecko," Rachel said as she turned to the exam room door and left.

Rachel sat at her desk, watching the letters in her soup float aimlessly in her owl mug. Shore, shop, should. Should wasn't on Nelly Garcia's "sh" list but it stood out in bold black covering every letter in the reading workbook. Should. She gently pushed the pasta letters with her spoon, hoping for the answer to be spelled out. Her black bag began to vibrate. Without looking, her fingers reached into the bag and grabbed her phone from the inner pocket. Paul's round red face was on the screen.

"Hey babe. I got your text earlier but I'm just getting to call you. I'm sorry. What should we do?"

Should? "What do you mean Paul? Melvin is Ash's dog? I can't just..."

"He's suffering. This has gotta be the third time in two months, babe. You've done right by him and he's had a good life. Ash knew before she left for school that he hasn't really..."

"But they played," her voice trembling, "Ash played with Melvin in the backyard the morning she left. He's waiting for her," her hand was forming a ball. "You know why he keeps hitting his head on the island?"

"I've tried. The foam, the bubblewrap...it falls and he doesn't know, Rach."

"No. He's stubborn, Paul. You've taped that corner ninety times and ninety-nine times he pushes that bowl right under that island and won't move. It's not our fault."

Paul drew in his breath. He had not taken a breath before he approached a woman with a legal pad full of ingredients in the produce section of the supermarket thirty years ago. He wasn't aware she would see through his question about how to cook an avocado. After that day and every day to follow he found his lung capacity and counterpoints getting stronger.

"Ash loved Melvin and will always love Melvin. Let's let Melvin rest. He's given Ashley so much."

Rachel felt Paul's hand squeeze her shoulder through the phone. "Maybe after winter break or let's wait in the spring. Don't make me do this now, please."

Melvin and Paul were on the couch deeply engaged in the 5:30 news when she arrived home with four avocados in her canvas bag. They both turned to her as she approached them on the couch. Melvin's nose sniffed as Rachel's familiar rose-scented soap and mustard wool sweater informed him the lady of the house was home. She sat next to Melvin and said,

"She'll be here in an hour. Is all the blood cleaned up? Like, all of it?"

"Of course, Rachel. Look, Mark said he should come home and be with us this weekend. We can talk it over and then if Ash is okay with it, we can head up there Monday."

"No."

"No, what? Let him keep on like this?" he paused to breathe. "What's the plan, Rachel?"

There exists no recipe, no lesson structure, no template for how to kill your daughter's dog, she thought. In September, she explained to her second graders the concept of ending an animal's life in a story about a beloved pig who befriends a spider to escape death by familiar hands. She carefully articulated to them that the ham on their sandwiches had a source that was cute but a certain degree of sacrifice on the part of the pig was necessary. Melvin isn't to be slaughtered. Would Ashley find this necessary? Why wasn't there an intelligent insect to weigh in on the quality of Melvin's life?

Rachel lifted the canvas bag, "I'm going to finish the guacamole."

Rachel stood at the kitchen counter, her fingers crafting guacamole automatically. As she squeezed a lime, it slipped from her hands and landed next to Melvin's bowl. She moved the barstool where Ashley sat every morning before school, spinning and giggling as Melvin's clear, sharp eyes followed her. Rachel winced as she thought of the countless times she would raise her voice at Ashley as she sat perched at the island feeding Melvin from her hand. She looked to the floor beneath her and nudged the green bowl away from the island corner with her toe.

"Ok boy, let's get her," Paul said to Melvin as they both hopped off the couch and headed for the door. The front door opened and spilled dull yellow light onto the crisp brown grass. Ashley's Mazda lights flickered off as the car door swung opened. Melvin's nose stabbed the air and his feet stamped the concrete on the doorstep.

"Hey, there Mel," Ashley's soft soprano rose up meeting Melvin's ears. Melvin bolted away from the doorstep and onto the grass. Paul lost track of him as he faded into the night. Ash kneeled on the driveway, arms out ready to receive Melvin. She felt his breath on her face as he passed her. A thud shot through the early evening air as Mrs. Nowley's tires squealed on the pavement.

Mrs. Nowley popped out of her Ford Taurus. She didn't take note of the deep imprint on her driver's door. She could only gasp and cover her mouth with her gloved hands as she stood over the sweet girl who used to wave at her when she walked Melvin in the afternoon. Ashley was kneeling and cradling a heavy wet chocolate Labrador. As Paul hurried across the grass, he saw the puffs of Ashley's breath in the dark leading him to her.

Rachel stood in the doorway of her home in her dry brown socks. She heard Mrs. Nowley, her husband and Ashley. Her hazel green eyes led her onto the doorstep where she stood searching the darkness to find the sound.