Sad Animals by Clint Margrave
After her mother died, D. started following these animal rescue pages on Instagram. Now she shows me pictures of dogs and cats, sometimes mistreated, underfed, full of mange, born blind, disabled, or missing limbs.
“No more sad animals,” I say, after she shows me a cat without any hind legs, hopping around on prosthetics.
We sit in our designated spots in the living room, her on the couch with her phone, me in my chair with a book, like some old man. It’s summer and we’ve eaten dinner early, so it’s still light out.
“Oh no,” she says, “look at this puppy.”
She gets up and walks across the living room, holds out her phone so I can see. The picture shows a split screen with a sad-eyed mangy puppy in the “Before” box and a happy, well-fed one in the “After.”
“I hate all these sad animal pictures,” I say.
“But didn’t you see?” D. says, “It’s fine now.”
The “After” picture, with the smiling (all dogs look that way), bright-eyed, well-fed puppy doesn’t seem to redeem the “Before” picture which sets in my brain and lingers longer.
D. goes back to the couch. Too small for both of us. We sit on opposite sides of the living room. An antique Louis XIV that once belonged to my grandmother, the couch has a broken leg that D. and I have propped up with books. The upholstery wore out a long time ago. Still, it’s outlasted my father, my grandmother, even my mother’s deteriorating memory. She has dementia and lives with my sister, and forgets where she is. She calls and asks me to drive her home. The last time she said, “Maybe if you come over, your dad will take us out to dinner.” He’s been dead for ten years.
When D. and I moved into our new place, I suggested getting rid of the old couch. Yes, it was an antique, but it was also falling apart and to be honest, not that comfortable. D. wouldn’t hear of it. She said you couldn’t just replace something like that.
“Oh no,” she says, scrolling on her phone. She puts her hand over her mouth.
“I don’t want to see,” I tell her, but it’s too late. She shows me an orange kitten born without eyes.
It’s been six months since her mother died. I don’t fight her too hard on it.
That night her sister called was one of the most helpless moments in my life. With my own parent, I had control over my feelings no matter the hurt. There is no way to manage someone else’s grief. All I could do was rub her back, let her cry.
D. crosses the threshold. She shows me a German Shepherd so skinny you can see its ribs.
“People who do this to animals should be shot,” I say. I don’t normally have such a violent reaction to things, but every once in a while, it’s satisfying. Mostly, it just makes me sad.
“But he’s fine now,” she says. Always the most important counterpoint. Just like that cat with two legs is fine if you mean hopping around on two prosthetics.
I’m skeptical, I guess. But who knows? Maybe the mangy puppy is okay. Maybe D. is fine. And my mom with dementia sitting in her chair at my sister’s house. When I was over there for her birthday, she told me she had a newborn baby. I didn’t bother with the logic.
“What’s the baby’s name?” I asked.
“Becky,” she said.
My mom hasn’t had a life in ten years. She sits in that chair watching reruns of I Love Lucy. The doctor said that she’d invented this story as a coping mechanism to deal with the helplessness of her situation. It’s the opposite of D.. I don’t want to forget: the woman who got me dressed each day as a kid, read me bedtime stories, drove me to school, made me lunch, cooked dinner for the whole family every night.
Between D. and me, my mom is the only parent left. Most of our friends still have both of theirs though it’s starting to happen to them too.
“Oh no,” she says, a few minutes later, jumping right back off the couch.
I know exactly what she’s looking at and I immediately hold out my hand to block her.
“No more,” I say. “I think we’ve reached our cap for the night.”
“It’s not that, I swear,” D. says. She holds out her screen.
“Look,” she says.
I look.
It’s a picture of D. and her mom in Venice, Italy.
“Eight years ago,” she says. “She was fine.”
D. time travels on Instagram. She and her mom stand in front of a fountain, both holding gelato, smiling.
“I’m sorry,” I say to D.. “These are good memories to have.”
“I remember I got annoyed with her on the trip,” she says.
“That’s only normal,” I say.
I kiss her hand as she stands over my chair. She takes her phone and goes back across the living room.
“Do you think anything happens when we die?” she asks. We have been lifelong atheists, but I’ve noticed she’s thinking more about this kind of stuff.
“Officially, I don’t,” I say to D.. “Then again, what do I know? Maybe the dead are somewhere right now showing sad pictures of us to one another.”
She quiets. She stares at the picture then starts to scroll. I’ve stopped trying to read. The sun has gone down and the living room has grown dark, except for the glow of her phone.
“Oh look,” she says, up once again and walking towards me.
I don’t hold out my hand in case it’s a picture of her mom.
“I know you don’t want to see it,” she says, “but just one more.”
It’s a video of a cat missing its front legs instead of its hind ones, somehow still able to jump and play, despite its disability.
“See?” she says. “It’s fine.”
She’ll have more for me tomorrow night. And the next night. And the night after. You
wouldn’t believe how many sad animals there are.
Clint Margrave is the author of the novel Lying Bastard, and the poetry collections, Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and Visitor. His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Rattle, The Moth, Ambit, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.
4 January 2024
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