Bandit is part husky and part shithead.

Rumbling on the hardwood above and a yelp and I have to guess that Bandit nipped or frightened Lily.

Dogs are funny and pant when they're nervous or excited and both Bandit and Lily were circling, tongues dangling, and their sides heaving. Lily rushes to me, ears down, and stands sideways to lean on me. Bandit lets his one lazy ear flop while he perks up the other. Did I do something, he appears to ask. I pet him too.

Lily follows and Hershey wedges her brown sausage body into the middle of hands and snouts and paws and sticks her nose at me for attention. Ozzy the pug takes the moment to steal Hershey's bed, which is really his bed.

What the hell was all that, I ask Jerry.

I don't know! They were both Over THERE. I look and the little braided rug is a mess. It's where Lily usually plunks down at night.

Now she's with me in the basement and my fingers are cold. It's March and we have water trickling across the unfinished floor until it meets tile and pools. It's just passing through I suppose. Me too. Some days life feels to me as if i am standing at a bus station in a foreign country. The little folded schedule says I am in the right place, I think. I lean against a poster dated for last year. The sun has faded out names and faces. With my stupid yellow ticket wrapped in my grungy fingers I stand there wondering of the bus will ever come.

This morning I want to find my body's lingering warmth in bed and fit myself back in place. It was 6-something and I got up to get Lily's food ready. I mix enzyme powder into her food, moisten it with tap water and shove it into the microwave where no one will eat it spill it steal it off the counter. For $100 bucks a bottle I confess that if the wrong dog gets a nose in that bowl and downs Lily's food, I am going in there to get it back.

I clomp around the house doing normal things but I am not normal. I feel like someone took our a mega eraser and smudged all my feelings out. Jerry sits stressing about things way more important than my feelings, but someone stole my tongue and I keep quiet. Actually, I think my tongue, along with happy thoughts has been stomped kicked poked swung at and hit shoved in front of a speeding train truck bus and generally left out in the cold on purpose by myself and others. Nice.

Anyway, I leave Jerry to himself and thoughts probably of his daughter his health the bills the flood in the basement the new floor and desire to drag that crapper back in from the patio but, I am too tired today or I would do it now, he told me earlier. I sit here in the chilly basement.

This morning I did try to get back in bed, but it was a really regretful move, sort of like making a face at the last second and for eternity there you are right in front like blemish on the family photo. While I wished for sleep, that independent and unfortunately dominant part of my brain took out its serious weapons and commandeered my head for the day. It wanted quiet, so I have been very very quiet. The nagging and worrying began while I felt around the sheets for my other sock before hopping in. It said: you have to get up in 20 minutes anyway to give Lily her food you have to take a photo and go to the town hall you have to run Lily through the woods so you aren't brushing at your shoulders all day trying to knock off the guilt.

Out of bed with way too little sleep and I give Lily her dish. She unhinges her jaw like a snake and shovels in her breakfast. She looks better and has a puppy's energy back and I can see her body reasserting itself over her concave little skeleton. When I think of a couple of weeks ago when the specialist finally diagnose her and handed me the magic remedy, I realize that without it I don't think Lily would have lasted until today. I would right this second be staring at all the places from which she is absent. Won't need her food bowls anymore. Won't need her doggy bed or leashes. Lily would right now be just a blank space on the basement tile where a dog once slept. The end. Something in my head must have slammed a door on that thought while the vet and I searched and searched for the problem and cure. Why hadn't I totally flipped?

Spring. Late March with lots of water seeping in. Daffodils. The smell of moist earth. Easter only days ahead. I am depressed. Who cares about anything anyway? Jerry says, GO to BED already! I wish I could. After all the housework and bills and writing and everything is done, I get a few minutes to myself and I am finally feeling peaceful as if my life is my own and does not belong to some mean bastard randomly shuffling me through the maze. At night he sleeps and I am free to let my mind roam where it want to roam .

Tonight Lily cast long creepy shadows while sniffing for a good spot. Her legs were like black ink tossed across the muddy ground. Shadows of her ears were the size of bright orange emergency cones.

Tomorrow we go to the vet so he can tell me if the little bubble on her belly is anything to worry about.