i_dreamt_that_i_dreamt_08 crOwl that night in the house, there was a strange absence they felt with coltrane at the vet for observation and rabies testing. liiy felt like there was an interruption, a lengthy pause, which fell upon her like a great weight. this is what love has done to me, she thought. i give, but i must take. i must have what gavin has. it is me inside of him that i must have. and in her dream that night, as she spooned with gavin, having drawn his arms around her breasts, lilly heard great blasts from gavin's shotgun. she flung the basement door open and nearly fell down the wooden stairs to find he had shot coltrane dead. she gaped at him and saw that tears were streaming down his face. "i had to do it," he said. lilly woke, her heart pounding, sweat soaking the hair at her temples. she wriggled out of gavin's heavy hold. he suddenly woke beside her and instantly sat up next to her. lilly was quiet, swallowing the stale air as she exhaled it as if she was suffocating on her own fear. "bad dream?" gavin asked, his voice mucousy and strained. lilly shook her head yes. gavin rubbed her back lovingly. "we'll be getting trane back today, i'm sure." he said. lilly closed her eyes and once more saw the image of coltrane laying on the cold, concrete basement floor, his fur glistening red where the bullets had entered. her eyes were hot. she hunched her shoulders and tried to agree with him. "i don't want anything to ever happen to us," she said, finally. her words were gasps. gavin held her as if she was his sanity trying to leap off a cliff. the phone rang like an unexpected flash of audible lightning. lilly hushed and sucked in her weeping. gavin let her go and reached over to the bedside table where a copy of jack london's "sea wolf' rested splayed open at page 48. he picked up before the second ring was finished. "hello?" he said, clearing his throat. 071030 ... unhinged 'um...hi. is lilly there?' the voice was so tiny and cautious that gavin couldn't tell whether it was a boy or a girl but he thought he could detect a note of surprise. 'yeah. who is this?' the voice cleared it's throat and coughed a little cough. 'tell her it's boo.' lilly grabbed the phone from gavin before he could even tell her who it was. 'boo...' lilly's eyes were wide and more tears streamed down. she occasionally nodded her head and then whispered 'yeah' into the receiver as if she forgot she was talking on the phone. she clicked the talk button and handed the phone to gavin. 'that was my brother. i talked to him when i moved here. that was the first time i had talked to him since mom and dad's funeral. they blame it on me. all of them. they lie and say they don't. but they do. my grandma died yesterday. i need to go back to vermont.' larry the vet was nervous about coltrane's rabies test. all signs on coltrane and the mama raccoon indicated that coltrane was fine, but he couldn't help but get a little nervous. coltrane and gavin and now lilly were one of his favorite families. larry knew he wasn't supposed to be emotionally involved with this patients but trane made it so hard. he was so lovable. larry's work with abused and abandoned pets left him drained and it was nice to work with a happy healthy pet that belonged to a loving family. larry paced and scrubbed the lab. trane and mama raccoon watched him intently from their respective cages. trane occasionally scratched at the two stitches in his snout. 'trane, you stop that or i'm going to have to put one of those horrible collars on you.' trane laid down in a jumble of limbs in the almost too small cage and followed larry's movements with his eyes. the timer dinged. larry raced across the lab and looked at the petri dish. he exhaled a huge sigh of relief. he hated giving people and animals bad news. the test was negative. trane didn't have rabies. 'thank goodness' larry mumbled out loud. 071030 ... crOwl the next day was a swirling, whirlwind of activity and things to do for this new family. the first box to check was a plane ticket for lilly flying from LAX to burlington international which they secured after a lengthy internet debacle, for as cheaply as possible on travelocity. the next, of course, was coltrane's status, which a call confirmed was favorable. larry the vet was confident he could be released and would even benefit from riding along to the airport to see lilly off. while lilly prepared for her trip, gavin went on his own and retrieved him, receiving nothing but licks and requests to lay on his open lap during the trip back home. gavin felt relieved and so thankful that trane was ok. he had become the barometer of their little circle and now that he was safe and free from rabies, everything seemed to glow with the auspicious glow of green lights. gavin pulled into the driveway of their liitle rental and turned the key off, killing the strains of john k. sampson's voice on the cd player. when he opened the door, coltrane leapt and scurried up to the front door, wagging his tail with obvious impatience. gavin moved up behind him and found lilly in their bedroom. "i can't decide what to pack," lilly moaned, riffling through her dresser drawers, pulling out frilly shirts and out of date jeans. "how about that simple black dress?" gavin suggested. "yeah, i got it, but i'm thinking for the rest of the week-end." "well, it's going to be fallish and chilly during the nights at least. how about some sweaters?" lilly pulled open the bottom drawers. "good idea." she said, grabbing two different ones, grey and forest green. coltrane sat at her feet, sniffing her selections and seemed to agree emphatically with her choices. later, with her suitcases packed and stored away in the hatchback of their '91 volvo, lilly made a simple dinner of breaded eggplant and couscous. gavin produced a bottle of cab sav, seemingly out of thin air. "where did you get that?" lilly asked, smiling, one eye brow raised, her signature look that drove gavin crazy. "oh, i have my ways," he said, kissing her. he spun away from her and opened the kitchen drawer containing the corkscrew and other culinary odds and ends. "so tell me about your grandma..." 071104 ... unhinged 'well....' lilly bit her lip and reached for her glass of wine. 'you've never told me much about your family.' 'there's a reason for that. a lot of them blame everything on me. my brothers and sisters, my aunts, uncles, and my grandma.' 'maybe it's your guilt intensifying the situation?' gavin took lilly's hand that was fidgeting on the table. as usual, when lilly talked about her family she couldn't look gavin in the face. it was obvious to him that the guilt still ate her. trane sat up under the table and shoved his face into her lap. she laughed. trane had an uncanny knack for lightening her mood. 'yes, probably, but i don't think it's much of an exaggeration gavin. i understand why they blame me. it was my boyfriend. and i was always getting into trouble at the time and i dropped out of school. i was the black sheep. but gram coaxed me through. she made me pierogies and soup and would sit with me until i ate enough bites to satisfy her that i wouldn't waste away. she was really the only one that actually told me it wasn't my fault that the asshole was crazy. she told me stories about the boys she ran around with before she married my grandpa. she was always the glue of the family when horrible things happened. she was a saint.' lilly squeezed gavin's hand painfully and a tear fell on trane's snout. trane tried to jump up in her lap and almost knocked the table over. lilly scooted the chair back with a big smile and trane put his front paws on her shoulders and licked away her tears. gavin secretly wished he could comfort lilly as well as trane always seemed able to. 'well it's time to head to the airport.' lilly looked over her shoulder at the kitchen clock. 'yeah.' the three of them drove to the airport quietly. it was a three hour drive to LAX but the ticket was so much cheaper that gavin and lilly decided it was the best thing to do. lilly sat in the back seat cuddling and petting trane who placidly looked out the window. they finally got to the airport and gavin got out of the car to help lilly with her bags. lilly threw her arms around him. 'i so wish you could come with me. this funeral is going to be like a war zone for me.' her exhale was nervous and shaky in gavin's ear. gavin grabbed her ass and got a suprisingly painful smack in the gut and a teary smile out of her. 'i wish i could come too.' gavin watched lilly disappear into the sliding glass mouth of the airport. 071105 what's it to you? who go blather from