Frances Snitt’s daughter was a disappointment. She’d never say so to anyone, but it was true. There were surface disappointments, like her appearance. Ramona Snitt was a beaky stork of a young woman, jutting bones and teeth, slicing and crashing through life. The girl’s teeth particularly irked Frances. She paid for years of orthodontia, no small feat for a widow, screaming, fighting, tortured years of metal, rubber bands and money. All down the drain from lost retainers and laziness. Slowly but surely, Ramona’s teeth found their way back to their original positions, her incisors erupting through her lips like fence posts.
A misaligned bite Ramona couldn’t help, but other things? She ruined her thick black hair, her one good feature, with bleach. The result was dark roots with neon yellow tips, so damaged Frances imagined she could pull the strands and they’d stretch and stretch, like plastic wrap. Ramona also wore hand-me-down clothing, anything she could find at the Goodwill or balled up on some man’s floor. Nothing was intentional, nothing fit her, everything large and unisex. Shirts advertising products she never used, sweaters boasting of colleges she never attended. Her clothes hung on her, wafting body odor, her own and others, the neckholes sliding over her knobby shoulder to reveal a faded red bra strap.
There were deeper disappointments, character defects Frances hoped Ramona would outgrow but was losing her will to wait them out. How she begged for favors and, once granted, complained it wasn’t enough. Jobs handed to her were too hard, the hours too long, the boss out to get her. Cheap rooms rented by well-meaning friends that were too drafty, the wrong shape, windowless or with too many windows. Sliding-scale therapists who were too stern, or too lax, or judging her. Frances marveled at how easily Ramona could look a gift horse in the mouth and walk away so easily, thinking a better horse, also miraculously free, was around the next corner.
There were childhood habits that foreshadowed disappointments to come. Like how Ramona would scratch her mosquito bites until they bled and scabbed over, and then she’d scratch the scabs until they scarred, turning her olive skin into a map of raised pink islands. How she’d ride her bicycle down a hill, take her hands off the handlebars and close her eyes, excited for a crash. Frances had seen her do it. Ramona loved being hurt. She’d lie in bed with a broken arm and ask for the liquid antibiotics they prescribed for children: pink, chalky and sweet.
Current disappointments were less creative. Ramona would make Frances pay long distance rates to be told she’d ruined her life. She’d disappear for weeks, show up unannounced and call in the dead of night. She’d sneak into the garage to hide out when Frances locked her out. She’d steal anything she could get her hands on.
As the years went by, the small disappointments piled atop the big disappointments and weighed heavy on Frances, made worse by her inability to share them. The neighbors, the few that were left to remember, were only too eager to confirm the rumors that had been swirling around the Snitts for years. The way Frances’ husband had died and left her penniless, her daughter mixing with the wrong crowd, the stealing, the promiscuity, the drugs. Frances knew that when your daughter was a disappointment, you had to keep it to yourself. You couldn’t tell anyone.
Frances tried to remember Ramona’s baby smell and how holding her used to take her breath away, so moved was she by her existence. Skin made from her skin, which she could not stop touching. Touching her daughter now was like trying to hold ice in your hand, so cold it burned, so slippery. Frances’s hand on Ramona’s shoulder was unwelcome, an encroachment in enemy territory. Touching her was more painful than standing apart, so Frances didn’t touch her anymore. They didn’t embarrass one another by trying. Frances’s love had become theoretical, running on memories and Ramona’s refusal to go away.
Frances set a boundary with Ramona: no more staying at the house. If she wanted to continue her lifestyle, she’d have to do it on her own. Everyone at the support group, which Frances attended three times, told her that’s how you handle family members like Ramona. She called the police the last time Ramona pounded on her door, and waited for them to arrive before she opened it. But Ramona would still call and leave messages on her answering machine, an ancient cassette tape system that Frances couldn’t bring herself to toss out. She kept all the used cassettes, full of Ramona’s pleas, threats and recriminations, in a shoebox at the top of her closet. She imagined listening to them at some point, chronologically, to see if she could make some sense out of all this. She wasn’t sure when to do this.
She was also running out of tapes to put in the machine, since they didn’t make them anymore. She did a search on the computer and found a box for sale in bulk, from someone who lived in another state. She waited to buy them, afraid to send a stranger money. Besides,she had half a box left. She wasn’t sure which would end first, the box of unused tapes or Ramona.
Frances’s husband, Ramona’s father, had passed and she lived alone. She bore their adult daughter all by herself. Frances was old now. She did all the things one would expect an old woman to do, and she got small pleasures from them. She gardened, read and took walks. She was renovating her garage into an apartment for the caregiver she’d eventually hire to live with her. Her daughter was a disappointment, so she made other arrangements. She planned to die in her house. In the meantime, she had her Queenie.
Queenie was her cocker spaniel, and the absolute love of her life.
***
Frances typically avoided the grocery store on weekends because it was too crowded. But on one particular Saturday she was out of grapefruit. Sunday mornings she ate half a grapefruit with a soft boiled egg. The egg buffered the acid from the citrus, protecting her ulcer, and Frances found she could get away with the combination once a week without raising her cholesterol. She owed a lot to grapefruit. She believed it kept her from catching a cold since Ramona moved out, and that was many years ago. So Frances got up early, ate her Saturday breakfast of boiled oatmeal with raisins, and went to the grocery store on the busiest day of the week.
Queenie went along. She went everywhere with Frances, a luxury they exploited together, a sweet old lady with her dog going to the post office and the grocery store and the library. Places where people turned a blind eye to the rules and sneaked Queenie a cookie under the counter, winking at Frances. She could hardly blame them. Queenie was not just a dog, but a true companion, a puppy she’d picked up a decade earlier from a desperate-looking woman selling them from a cardboard box. It was the best hundred dollars Frances had ever spent. When Frances spoke, Queenie cocked her head, trying to catch the sounds. She was eager to please. Better than Frances’s late husband in many ways, more reliable than Ramona by far. She drew oohs and aahs from strangers, compliments and envy. It was a new experience for Frances.
The minute Frances grabbed her red leash off the hook by the door, Queenie was ready to go. She trotted down the front steps and sniffed the air with closed eyes, her whiskers trembling with the effort. Frances loved to watch her take in the morning, so open to whatever beauty may be in store for them. It was that special time of winter when the air was cold but the sun was bright. A crow perched on a telephone pole and squawked down at them, a busybody issuing a warning. It was early and on a weekend, the block was sleepy and silent. As far as Frances was concerned, it was just the three of them, and had always been just the three of them. The crow, Queenie and herself. She imagined the earth spinning in space, holding them close. Peace so rarely came without loneliness for Frances. She looked down at Queenie.
“Can you believe we live in this world, Queenie?” The little dog cocked her head, weighing the gravity of the question. “What are we doing here?”
Frances felt her eyes fill with tears. She wiped at them roughly, glad nobody was around. These tears had been coming out of nowhere lately, and she didn’t like it. Anger she could work with, but sadness was useless. It was a giving-up emotion, self-pitying and elderly, one she had no use for. “Go potty, Queenie,” she said, not wanting to think of herself spinning on the globe any longer. Queenie peed in the circle of dirt by the mailbox, her gentle drops darkening the soil but never scalding the grass. There were no surprises with Queenie. She was a good girl.
Queenie was also a good size for an old woman. Frances could lift her into the grocery cart with little effort and Queenie would stay very still as she was lowered onto the blanket Frances had folded for her at the bottom. They’d wheel through the aisles, Frances pushing and Queenie lying on her blanket, and everyone’s eyes went to Queenie, which suited Frances fine. She didn’t like to be gawked at. Fellow shoppers would smile and pat Queenie’s head. What a good girl! What an angel! Ramona, at her chubbiest, cutest stage of babyhood, rarely had received such adoration from strangers.
The trouble with going to the store on a Saturday was that Frances didn’t know who she might run into. She knew she was taking a risk. She was nearly done, having thought of many other things she needed from other aisles, saving the grapefruit and produce aisle for last. People tended to linger in produce aisles, sniffing and squeezing, considering their options. They took on a languid air, their nostrils filled with the perfumes of strawberries or melon, depending on the season. They’d catch sight of an acquaintance, a familiar face from the neighborhood, and they’d wander over, remark on the weather or ask after wives and husbands. Frances had lived in this small town, a Northern California suburb called a “bedroom community,” her entire adult life. Frances hated the term because it sounded pornographic. But it was an apt description, as the town really was just a collection of houses, apartments and condominiums, with a few shops, gas stations and a library. The only jobs to be had were in the service industry: low-paying, dead-end. Many of which Ramona had burned through, and asked not to come back. Frances got by on social security benefits and could afford to spare herself the indignities of geriatric employment. She and Queenie could go days at a time without even leaving the house.
But despite her sparing visits into town, the old-timers still recognized her. There’s Frances Snitt, formerly Frances Roy, that mysterious young wife who kept to herself, now that mysterious old woman who lived all alone. Frances, a tall, stern sort, that outsider who married Douglas Snitt and had a troubled daughter. What ever happened to them? They always wanted to know.
Frances pointed Queenie toward a brightly colored mound of citrus. They passed familiar faces, ones they avoided on their normal shopping days, but the hardware store clerk and pharmacist left her alone, their gazes trained on Queenie. A dog in a grocery store! Lying so pretty on her blanket! Frances smiled vaguely, friendly but anonymous, and picked up a ruby red grapefruit, normally a style she distrusted but the classic whites were far away and she wanted to leave. The trouble with ruby reds was that they’re all flash and no substance, too full of themselves for the likes of grapefruit. Frances distrusted their bright yellow rinds, which hid a multitude of defects, like mushy flesh or sickly sweet juice that would make Frances wince with every bite. She squeezed one near the bottom, a promising candidate for tomorrow. She was almost home free.
“Frances Snitt!” A chirpy voice rang from behind. Frances put her grapefruit in the cart and turned away as if no one had spoken. She sometimes got away with this, folks supposing she was hard of hearing. “Frances! It’s Helen!”
“Oh!” Frances said, turning around to face Helen Knapp. “I didn’t see you!” Frances had a deep voice that never sat well with exclamations, and her face flushed at the sound of it. She cleared her throat. “I didn’t see you.”
“It’s no wonder,” said Helen, poking Frances’s arm playfully. “You were studying that grapefruit like it was a test.” She laughed at her own joke, a surprisingly guttural sound coming from such a small person.
“I’m particular about my grapefruit,” Frances muttered. She looked down at her gardening shoes, caked in mud, which she forgot to change before she left. Why hadn’t she remembered to switch to her sneakers? The sight of them enraged her, and it enraged her further that Helen Knapp might see them and decide that Frances was the type of woman who wore muddy gardening clogs to the grocery store. She straightened her spine until she was looking down on the top of Helen’s head. She could see her scalp peeking through her thinning hair, which had been teased to spun sugar to fool the casual observer. But Frances wasn’t fooled. Helen’s scalp was pink and shiny, as vulnerable as a newborn’s. It gave Frances a lift and she realized she could end this conversation as quickly as Helen started it. “It’s nice seeing you, Helen, but I have to get Queenie home.” Hearing her name, Queenie thumped her tail.
“What a darling little dog!” But Helen’s eyes never left Frances. She was not charmed by Queenie, that much was clear. “How you get away with bringing a dog into a grocery store, I’ll never know!” She leaned in, the pleasantries over. She lowered her voice for privacy, as if privacy were possible in a grocery store. “How is that daughter of yours?” Her question hung in the air like a puff of poison. Frances hated simple questions that were veiled attacks, mostly because the attacker had you at a disadvantage. If you overreact, why, it was just an innocent question! If you answer it truthfully, they get the goods. Helen smiled expectantly. Frances chose to lie.
“Ramona’s fine, thank you.”
Helen scrunched up her face. “Frances, are you sure?” She leaned closer. She was so close now Frances could smell her breath, a mixture of coffee and denture adhesive. “Lacey said she saw her sleeping outside. By the gas station.”
Frances had seen Ramona outside many times herself, leaning against the wall by the liquor store or sitting in the median with a cardboard sign. Please help. She’d seen her at the pharmacy in slippers and pajama bottoms and darted into the restroom to avoid her, waiting so long to be sure she was gone an employee banged on the door. Everyone in town had seen her. She was, Frances thought it was called, a hustler. But she had an apartment the last time Frances checked, a dreary building with peeling paint, but an apartment nonetheless. Sleeping outside? Frances looked down at Queenie, dozing on her blanket. She touched her silky head, stroking the white tuft that stood up like a soapy mohawk when she got a bath. Ramona hated baths. She used to wet her hair in the sink to trick Frances, getting into bed with feet so dirty her soles were black.
“Well,” Helen said, filling the silence. “I’m sorry to bring this up Frances but I’d want to know if my daughter was sleeping on the street.” Frances wished she’d shut up. She imagined doing something shocking to make that happen, like hitting her. She’d never hit a stranger, only spanked Ramona and there was that time with her late husband but she was only trying to slam the door and caught his fingers in her haste. But she longed for it now, the primal satisfaction of hurting someone in such a straightforward way. Who was this Helen, to accost her like this and disguise it as concern? There was that familiar anger, the sadness of the morning mercifully gone.
Frances looked down to steady herself and saw her muddy clogs. She lifted her foot and stomped down hard on the bright yellow linoleum. Clumps of mud flew, black specks and lumpy clods landing on Helen’s slacks and white ankle socks. Frances looked at the soiled socks, marveling at how childlike they were. Helen took a step back, shaking one foot and then the other. “Jeez, Frances!” Her squeaky voice was made for exclamations.
“‘Jeeeeeeeez, Fraaaaaaances!’” Frances snorted, mostly from shock at her own behavior. There was no going back now. She tried to find the right words to regain her dignity but settled on a counter-attack. “The fact is, Helen, your Lacey makes up stories for attention. Been doing it since she was a little girl.”
Frances raised her eyebrows and nodded. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. She calmly picked out two grapefruits while Helen gaped, mouth open, and steered Queenie to the checkout line, the Saturday shopping finally complete.
***
Frances drove home the long way, craning her neck for a flash of bleached blonde hair in alleys and doorways, though she knew Ramona had likely moved on, making the rounds to the doors of the few who’d still open them to her. Frances knew a few of these people, all with strange names. Not the ones they were born with, but ones they chose for who knows what stupid reason. Like Teeny, a large girl, who used to work at the Goodwill with Ramona. Or Ramona’s sometimes boyfriend Tymn, a married realtor who played guitar in bar bands. His photo was on bus benches around town, his bloated face and neck tattoo peeking out from under his shirt collar a reminder of Ramona’s poor judgment. But it had been a long time since she’d heard anything about Teeny or Tymn. She wasn’t sure if Ramona had any people left. Frances talked to Queenie while she drove.
“Where’s Ramona, Queenie?” Queenie closed her eyes and yawned wide, the way happy dogs can. Frances could see yellow tartar edging her back teeth. She’d have to schedule a dental cleaning soon. Queenie fit perfectly in the passenger seat, curled up like a cashew. She mostly slept in the car but sometimes she’d sit up and watch the scenery go by, the trees and buildings a smooth slideshow through the window, lacy patterns of sunlight and leaves dancing across her face. Frances would roll down the window so she could sniff the wind. “Where’s Ramona?” she repeated in a soft voice. The softness was for Queenie’s sake. Usually she said her daughter’s name in fraught tones, tight, sharp sounds that made Queenie hide behind the couch. “Where’s Ramona?” She said it to hear it again, such a lovely name, chosen for its roundness and a nod to her Italian heritage. Queenie’s tail thumped against the upholstery but she stayed curled up. She wasn’t looking out the window today. She was getting older and would sleep the afternoon away after their morning effort.
Frances drove by the liquor store, where Ramona sometimes leaned against the wall, her men’s flannel shirt falling off a bony shoulder, squinting into the sun and waiting for God knows what. Nobody was there, the front door locked and lights off, it being early on a Saturday morning. She swung by the old drive-in parking lot, not in business anymore, just a cracked expanse of asphalt sprouting weeds and trash. A place where teenagers would gather to smoke cigarettes and drink beer until the police came and kicked them out. One summer Ramona stayed there an entire week, huddling in a green tent with other people’s sons and daughters, none of whom Frances recognized. Frances would park across the street, behind a tree, and watch her daughter sit outside the tent, her blonde hair snarled up from her skull like a yellow tumbleweed. Ramona would disappear into the tent for hours, occasionally stumble out to squat and relieve herself behind the old concessions stand. Frances would wait for those moments.
Frances and Queenie would bring coffee in a thermos and neat baggies of food to have while they waited. They’d play the radio, the local public station, which alternated between news and classical music. Frances liked the womb of sanity she’d created in the car, impenetrable and solid. A vault of soothing voices and coffee smells. Queenie would sleep on the passenger seat while Frances stroked her fur and stared straight ahead, her face flat and assessing, waiting for Ramona to emerge from the tent. Mozart’s sonatas would fill the car, pleasant and energetic. Then Bach, dark and menacing. At dusk, Frances and Queenie would drive home and Frances would mentally replay all the images she had gathered, storing them away for future cataloging.
She didn’t expect to see Ramona at the gas station or liquor store or drive-in today, but Frances drove by them anyway. She soothed herself by visiting these places often. Not to talk to Ramona, just to see her. Seeing scratched an itch, provided some confirmation, but talking was a mistake, always turning into trouble. Begging and screaming and accusing trouble that made Frances’s head split open and her teeth gnash. She tried to speak gently but the longer she looked at Ramona, her beautiful dark hair ruined with bleach and eyes dead and wanting, the more she realized what a disappointment it all was. If only she could find the right words to tell her. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.
Ramona! What is wrong with you?
No need to find the words now. Ramona wasn’t anywhere to be found, at least not today. Frances looked at the orderly line of cars in front of her, waiting for the light to turn green. She watched the people in the crosswalk, carrying bags of groceries or pushing children in strollers. She often watched the people around her with great curiosity, as if they were on a stage and she was the lone audience member, watching a play that wasn’t real. Marveling at the actors’ commitment to their roles. Their carefully chosen flowers wrapped in a bow, their pressed white shirts and ties. Their babies in booties and knitted caps and sunscreen. They made it seem so real. Like they were enjoying an inside joke, the meaning of which escaped Frances. She orbited around them, watching with wonder and pity. How could they care about what shirt they wore or the best way to protect their skin from the sun? Didn’t they know that everything, every single thing they cared about, could be taken away without warning? How could they continue on like this?
The best Frances could do to carry on, the very best effort she could make to go through the motions of what felt more and more like a make-believe life, was to remember that Queenie needed her. Food in her bowl at eight and six, walks before and after. Queenie was so simple in her needs. It broke Frances’s heart to think how innocent Queenie really was, not realizing how short her life would be. Smaller dogs lived longer than larger ones, but still. Frances mentally calculated how many more years Queenie had and stroked her head.
The light turned green and Frances steered right, toward home. It wasn’t even lunchtime but she was tired and looking forward to seeing what progress her workman, an old Greek man she found through the want ads, had made in her garage. The small sink and toilet was being installed and Frances wanted to make sure everything worked. She didn’t want her live-in helper to have to come indoors every time nature called. “What do you say we call it a day, Queenie?”
Frances said. “Let’s go home.” She didn’t have to look to know Queenie raised her head at that word. Queenie loved going home.
***
Great progress had been made. The toilet flushed and the sink had running water, both hot and cold. Nobody could accuse Frances of making her helper use cold water. But Dimitris’s face was drawn and dour, even more than usual. His deeply lined jowls sagged, like a string was attached from his chin to the floor. He pulled an object out of his pocket, something wrapped in his white handkerchief. Frances had admiration for men who still kept handkerchiefs. When Dimitri used his to blow his nose during his interview with Frances at the kitchen table, she knew she could trust him.
“What is it, Dimitri?” Frances asked. She looked for Queenie, who was nosing around the new linoleum tiles in the mini kitchenette.
“You must get better lock, Frances Snitt. Maybe some bars on windows.” Dimitri had a habit of using full names. With his accent, it held a certain charm for Frances. He presented the wrapped handkerchief in his large, calloused hand. “I find this.”
Frances took it and began to unwrap it quickly. Whatever nonsense the neighborhood kids had left in here wasn’t going to scare her. Dimitri grabbed her forearm. “Careful, Frances Snitt. Glass could break.”
“Glass?” Frances asked, unwrapping it slowly. A smooth glass tube rolled out of the handkerchief into her open palm. It was black at one end, as if charcoal had been burned at the tip and its smoke rose, staining the glass black, then yellow, then clear. A sharp chemical smell rose in her nostrils.
“Drugs, Frances Snitt.”
Frances snickered defensively. “Well, heaven’s sake, Dimitri, even I know that.” She looked at the pipe wondering what drugs were smoked in it. There were so many new drugs, and so many ways to do it now she could hardly keep up, nor did she want to.
“Trash too, all over the garage,” Dimitri said gravely. “I clean it up. But you need to keep them out. They come back.” Dimitri took his handkerchief back and put it in his pocket. After some thought, he gently took the glass pipe out of Frances’s hand. “I get rid of this.”
“Oh, yes, thank you Dimitri.” Frances strode to the kitchenette, her rubber gardening clogs silent on the new flooring. She picked up Queenie and smelled her head, an antidote for the chemicals clinging to her nose.
“I go buy new lock, Frances Snitt.” Dimitri picked up his big toolbox, a set of rough wooden trays held together with a steel handle. “Deadbolt!” He tried to infuse his voice with some cheer.
“Dimitri, wait,” Frances said, looking around at the beautiful space he had made. The neat queen bed near the window, with cloth storage bins underneath. The short expanse of kitchen cabinets against the far end, with a mini fridge and hot plate. The clawfoot tub hidden behind a flowered curtain suspended from the ceiling. Frances was so happy with that find she planned on trying it out herself. She took in all these comforting sights, real signs that someone would be living here soon, and used them for courage to ask something she preferred not to. “What kind of drugs, do you think?”
Dimitri looked at the pipe with a furrowed brow. He was almost as old as Frances but he’d been around. He lived with his large family in one of the less desirable neighborhoods. Near the abandoned drive-in, if Frances wasn’t mistaken. “This?” he said. “Probably the crack. You know, the crack cocaine. The meth? They have round pipe for the meth.”
“Crack cocaine,” Frances said, seeing how the words felt in her mouth. “What in the world.” She followed him out and locked the door behind them.
***
That night was unusually chilly, so Frances turned up the heat. She and Queenie fell asleep on the couch to the late-late movie. Frances kept the television on because she imagined she heard noises from the garage and she needed a distraction from this paranoia, a maddening feeling because she knew that Dimitri had come back and installed the deadbolt. Besides, Frances loved falling asleep to the sound of a television. She found that movie dialogue, unless it was a movie with guns, always put her to sleep. Like when she was a child, tucked into bed early, and listening to the soft murmurs of her parents from the living room. She didn’t think she’d ever felt safer, more treasured, than when she was a little girl in her flannel nightgown, riding the gentle wave of her parents’ voices toward sleep.
She awoke with her mouth open and dry, the living room stifling hot. The television was too loud now, the late-late movie over and those horrible long commercials braying into the night. She turned down the volume, pressing her thumb on the button hard until it was silent. She peeled off her cardigan, which was damp with sweat, and drank some water. She turned off the heater, the knob hot to the touch.
“Goodness,” she said, looking down, expecting to see Queenie, who always followed her around the house. She was going to get her some water too. But Queenie wasn’t there. Nor was she on the couch.
“Queenie?” Frances said into the hot air. She walked quickly through the house, calling her name. Her heart beat faster each time she called and Queenie didn’t come running, as she usually did. As she approached the bathroom, she heard sounds. Toenails scraping wood. She opened the bathroom door to find Queenie on her side, legs pumping, face locked in a frozen mask, paws hitting the side of the medicine cabinet rhythmically. She was having a seizure. “Queenie!” Frances shrieked.
***
Frances sat in the veterinary emergency lobby, watching the actors dressed in scrubs of every color and pattern rushing about the stage, answering phones and showing people to exam rooms. They had grabbed Queenie the moment she arrived, and asked how long the seizure had lasted. So many questions. Has she ever had a seizure before? Was she on medications? What was Frances’s phone number? Was she spayed?
“What difference does that make?” Frances wanted to know.
“We have to put it in the computer,” the child actor said from behind the desk. She was wearing a hot pink scrub top with little paw prints all over it. What a ridiculous costume, Frances thought. How was she to be taken seriously?
The doctor, a female actor and not much older than the child behind the computer, wanted to know if Frances had any poisons around the house. Anything Queenie could have gotten into. “Poisons?” Frances asked, picturing a cartoon bottle with a skull and an x drawn on it. She looked at a chart on the wall behind the doctor’s shoulder. How old is your dog? There was a complicated system of locating your dog’s weight and following that column to your dog’s age in dog years and then following that column to your dog’s age in human years. It actually said that: human years and dog years. Frances wondered if a dog year seemed longer to a dog, or did it seem just like an average, old human year? She followed the visual path to discover that Queenie was 70 years old. Five years younger than Frances. This should not be happening.
Frances shook her head to clear it. “I have cleaning products but they’re all locked up.” Queenie had continued seizing off and on, all the way to the vet, Frances’s hand on her twitching body, holding her tight to the passenger seat. The streetlights, reds and whites and yellows, illuminated her frozen face while her eyes darted around.
The doctor crouched down, bringing herself close to Frances’s chair. Frances resented this melodrama, a sign of a poor actor. If she puts her hand on my shoulder, I’ll scream, she thought. “This is a delicate question,” the doctor said. “But I need you to answer truthfully. Could there be any narcotics in your home? Any stimulants?”
“Narcotics?” Frances’s cheeks burned at her stupidity, her inability to answer a question directly, only to dumbly parrot a question of her own. Queenie was dying, three to five years too soon by Frances’s calculations. This was not part of the plan. “Yes.” She straightened her shoulders and looked at the doctor impassively. “Crack cocaine. In my garage.”
The doctor stood up, writing in her chart. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Snitt, but we can’t get her to stop. After a sustained period of seizing, anything over a few minutes, really, her brain is damaged. Queenie’s been seizing on and off for at least thirty minutes. Even if we get her to come out of it, she’ll likely not be able to function.” She paused, letting the news sink in.
“Function?” Another parroted question. Frances dug her nails into the soft flesh above her knee. She hated the sound of her voice at this moment, old and bewildered. “What do you mean by ‘function,’ exactly?”
The doctor took on a clinical tone, cold, which Frances expected once she was identified as the type of woman who allowed crack cocaine to end up on her garage floor. A careless type who let her dog run around off-leash and pick up who-knows-what from the floor. “All her bodily functions will likely be affected. Her cognitive functions. Walking may be difficult to impossible. Feeding will be a challenge. She may not respond to your voice. We’ll have to see if she can consistently oxygenate on her own before we can even consider discharging her.” Frances imagined taking Queenie home. Syringe feeding her gruel, wrapping her limp hind end in a diaper. No more grocery store trips, no more morning walks. How quickly things can change. She should have known.
She saw the pipe held in Dimitri’s hand. Hadn’t that been her first clue? Hadn’t the sweltering heat of the living room woken her to this new hell, one she’d truly face alone, once and for all? Why hadn’t she told Dimitri that Ramona sometimes hid in the garage? Why hadn’t she insisted on a deadbolt? Why hadn’t she picked up Queenie sooner, put her on a leash, taken her in the house? Shouldn’t she have known? Shouldn’t she, of all people, see this coming and do something sensible to prevent it?
The doctor waited for a response, perhaps a piece of dialogue they had practiced before, something that had been written for Frances long ago. She would deliver it. She didn’t want to miss her cue.