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she was fawning over a video of brother corgi’s kissing each other on his computer while a cover of cyndi lauper’s “time after time” played with the footage.
her eyes became glassy while she perched on his chest. “they are so fucking cute!”
“i know you love the corgs,” he placed his hand along her back. “one day, we’ll get another dog.”
it sapped her whenever he spoke of their future. “i don’t know. dogs are a lot of work; they change your whole life.” the longer they lived without having a pet, the less motivated she was to care for one. bringing something furry into their lives was a bad idea, like couples who had babies in the hopes that the decision would keep them together.
“but you always wanted to have a dog.” she didn’t know why this was news, she had mentioned it before; their house was too small to suit an animal, they didn’t have a fence, then there was the cross-border trips, etcetera, etcetera.
“yeah, but you didn’t like it when we had a dog,” she reminded him. he had gotten a hernia when they raised a puppy for a few months several years ago. neither of them were prepared for how much work the dog would be, they were naive even though she’d grown up with them. she managed puppy training but he resented how much time she spent caring for the dog and not him. he had remarked to her, more than once, that he knew what father’s felt like when their children came into the world, because suddenly he was second in the life of his wife. after they returned the dog to the breeder, he said she’d been acting out a mother complex, when really, she felt it her responsibility to care and protect for a tiny creature that was only ten-weeks old.
“i didn’t like the way we went about it,” he corrected. she didn’t understand what the difference was.
a few months before she left her first husband, they bought a cat together, a hypo-allergenic breed that wouldn’t aggravate her asthma. her husband had grown up with cats, missed having them make biscuits on his chest like bakers at sunrise. she thought that if she gave him what he wanted, her leaving would be easier when the time came. it wasn’t.
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