Friday morning I went to Petco to buy Daphne more food. Now that we have a dog, I know that I am a liar. While I don’t lie outright, I don’t run up to people and say the opposite of what I am thinking, I do smile, I do wash and dress myself a certain way, I do try to suggest, by being friendly and through other tricks and schemes, that I am a normal loving person, with such great reserves of love that I can waste it, that I can shower it even upon a non-human, an animal I have taken into my home.

My mother, by the way, is a person who does hold these kinds of natural reserves, and a few nights ago, when she was over at my house she saw our dog, Daphne, sitting in the corner, staring at me. Carey, she said, Daphne is looking at you so significantly, and I looked over and saw that in fact, Daphne, who had seated herself in that strange way she has, with her back legs folded uselessly under her, was staring at me with a look of naked longing, or anxiety. I said that Daphne was probably just waiting for me to give her food, but I worried that she was trying to communicate with my mother, trying to tell my mother that my she should take her home, that I don’t really love her, that I am not as I seem.

So now we have established the ground rules: I have a dog, I believe she is a dog, and not a person, and that there is a difference between the two, and yet, at the same time, I am afraid of her as one is afraid of a ghost, or bogeyman—I am afraid my failings are far greater than they should be, that they will take form, attach themselves to her, and be visited upon me.

At Petco, cleverly, they keep the dog food in the back. To get to it one has to walk past the snack bar, the inanity—isn’t food, to an animal, food?—of which struck me particularly forcefully that day, and through various aisles: I chose the aisle filled with dog toys my dog would rip apart in five minutes and ingest. Then I staggered back to the line carrying my bag, and waited while the cashier rang up two women ahead of me. She was offering them the chance to donate to Petco’s foundation for homeless pets, and as I listened to the cashier talk about the charity, and how good it was, and how little of its money went to administrative costs, and then, also, how the cashier’s cats loved the exact same thing the customer’s cats loved—there was some other stuff in there, too, some just general friendliness towards the customer, and knowingness about cats—I thought, I don’t think I am going to give a donation to this charity.

When it was my turn to pay, the cashier, still cheerful from ringing up the customer before me said, Would you like to make a donation to the Petco foundation? and I said, also cheerfully, as if she had offered me dessert, No thanks! And then, when my purchase had come to some number nine cents short of a round dollar number, she said, Would you like to round up and give your change to the foundation? I said, Oh, that’s all right. I kept my nine cents. And as I signed the credit card slip and pulled on my gloves I felt great satisfaction at doing exactly what I wanted, and being truthful, and true to myself, no matter how ill anyone might think of me.

I Adjust to Autumn

The weather is fine, or it rains. The dog needs me, or sleeps. The children are joyous, or upset. My husband is near, or in Miami.

Music means too much, or is noise. My dreams stick, or dissolve. I am a beauty, but I am fat. My hair is too long, then too short.

My mitten is lost, or is found. I’m doing too much, or not much. I don’t spend a thing, or I splurge. I did, but I don’t have a jacket.

I am soaked, or dry as a bone. The leaves go, but don’t worry about it. We broke our bed, we still have a mattress. I am in love, or I am alone.

One morning last week Henry wore my socks to school. You would think that socks would be, like clouds or waves, anonymous things, too nondescript and numerous to keep track of, but in fact I have some favorite socks and I could tell, just looking at the ankle trim of his socks, that these were they. “Mmmm, they’re so comfortable,” he said. “I really like them.” One day a long time ago, some anonymous day, in fact, unmarked, two gametes joined to produce a zygote, which became a morula and then, of course, a blastocyst. Then, after the proper amount of time, plus, it seemed, a few extra days, a boy. Then the boy started wearing my socks, and waking up at 6:30 on a Sunday morning in the Berkshires to watch the mist, which filled the valley, burn off, and to see three deer eat at the crab apple tree, stooping to pick fallen apples from the ground. “You know,” he said, “these socks are a little tight. Do they really fit you?” And he ran off to class, away from me and John. We are a drag on his great spirits in the morning.

Yesterday I ripped my contact in half and removed half my contact from my eye. Then our bed broke. Then, today, I took the boys and the dog for a walk around a lake. As we walked, and the dog strained at her leash, the boys posed questions to me that all required immediate answers, which then inspired other questions. Their goal, it seemed to me, was to force me into an insupportable answer, or to concede that my rule-making was essentially arbitrary, or to become a tyrant. Can I throw a stone in the lake? You may. Can my brother? He may. Can we destroy lily pads with our stones? I think so. If we can destroy one or two lily pads with our little stones, may we now heft enormous boulders into the lake? May we heft four or five apiece? No, you may only throw one more, each. Fine, two more. Now you may never throw another rock in the lake again.

Tyrant. At the optometrist’s office, after we left the lake, the doctor dyed my eye yellow, and turned my eyelid inside out. I had stared, since I broke the contact, at my own eyeball for fifteen minutes at a time, trying to locate the clear scrap that was causing me so much pain. It was hidden from me, and only the doctor's methodical searching, his light, the thing that you rest your head in to immobilize it, this dye, was able to discover it. When he did, what relief I felt! But even as relief flowed through me, I had questions for the doctor.

I.

David was in Japan, so I took the boys to the Intrepid, hot and crowded on a summer weekend. I hadn’t, previously, focused on this, but one thing I enjoy is militaristic sight-seeing. I visit the places where people killed each other, and look at the instruments they used to do so. I take my children with me, so they can play with the guns that have been disarmed but left for us to handle. We imagine ourselves officers, pilots, bombers, grunts.

What should we do? Should we look away?

II.

Outside the library one afternoon this week, women sorted donated books that had been left out in the rain. They set them up along the wall, in the sun, to dry. Two older folks, a man and a woman, sat sleeping in their wheelchairs while their aides sat behind them on the bench, then walked over to look at the books. I imagined that David and I were there, asleep, in the wheelchairs. That we were out in the sun, in public, unaware of our surroundings, but watched after, cared for, together. This was almost unbearable. I went to my car and drove home. When I came back to the library, after lunch, the older couple was awake, and being helped into a car. The man waved at me, friendly and insistent, as I drove by, so I waved back.