JANUARY 5
I forgot about the sweet potato. In the kitchen sink was something round with one side mangled like birds had pecked it. Blackened in spots where the air had soaked in, the sweet potato in the sink was a mystery until morning.
Lily was chewing on it and they [the two other perturbed dogs] fought over it, Jerry tells me. What dog rummages through a kitchen and decides to eat a raw sweet potato? Lily had been with us only a couple of days and she ate like it was a race, slamming her snout against the bottom of her food bowl as she emptied it.
I find new bones everyday. Sifting through her fur and rubbing behind Lily's ears I feel something that has never slipped beneath my fingertips on the other dogs. Ridges. I can pinch them between my fingers like a potato chip.
She paces. She sniffs, stands at the door. Outside Lily? Want to go out?It's after 8 pm and I am getting home from a meeting. Bags of treats and my purse land beside the coffee table.
Where's the leash?Outside we add more scuffs to the snowfall and Lily finds a spot. From one side of the thin stretch of my backyard to the other we move. Shed, ladder, stonewall, dogwood, patio steps.
At the front door I reach to push the handle and Lily turns her head. Seconds later she was down the steps and heading toward the driveway.Lily. Lily! Stopping at the trucks she waits. Did her prior owner always take her along? I hate thinking that she is home alone while I sit at work hating the thought that she is alone. I am sorry Lily.