Every bit of it was a wonder to Evangeline. It spoke of family and home and affection. The exclamation point in particular moved her, the easy exuberance of it, the tender familiarity.
She’d showered and felt strangely beautiful despite a belly that far surpassed her breasts. She was wearing the black maternity leggings and cobalt knit dress Lorrie had helped her find in Silverdale back in January. Evangeline had worried the color clashed with her red hair, but Lorrie said, “The blue. It brings out the dark undertones in the red. Makes you seem quite mysterious.” Lorrie had blushed then, like she’d just confessed to a girl crush. Evangeline didn’t know what it meant to have mysterious hair, but she couldn’t help studying herself in the mirror each time she wore the blue dress, searching for a secret self.
Maybe that’s why Lorrie had stopped coming by. Maybe she’d been embarrassed. Months now, and Evangeline was still trying to figure it out.
But enough! She had Isaac’s note, and he’d even notched the heat up this morning. Besides, Rufus was there, sleeping in his chair, mouth breathing louder than ever. He was failing, the poor old guy. More and more, she had to help him onto the bed, and he hardly ate these days. When he moved, he looked like Isaac, his joints giving him grief. Worse, in the past week he’d started to have accidents in the house. Evangeline decided she’d better try to get him out one last time before heading to school. She hated to think of him lying in pee all day. She went to him. “Come on, boy.”
His eyes opened, but they were dull, like he was swimming out of anesthesia.
“Rufus. Come on. You can do it.” She tugged his collar. His head lifted and his hip muscles tensed, but his legs went slack and his head slumped back onto his paws.
She knelt before him and petted his head. As always these days, bloody snot drained into his open mouth. She stood and got a damp rag and a couple of tissues. It had to feel gross, snot coating his chin like that. The blanket he lay on was awful too, crusty with it. She would wash it as soon as she got home from school.
As she stroked Rufus’s face, he nuzzled her hand through the warm rag. But when she tried to dry him, he reared back in alarm, then jerked forward with a huge sneeze. Bright red splattered over Evangeline’s face and neck and hands, over her pretty blue dress, over the area rug and wood floors. Blood poured from Rufus’s nose, soaking into the arm of the chair. His eyes went wide, ringed white as if he were a horse in battle.
She pressed the rag to his nose, but the flow wouldn’t stop. She tried stuffing tissues up there, to put pressure on whatever had burst. It might have worked if he hadn’t kept sneezing, hadn’t kept spraying more blood into the room.
She had to get him to a vet. But how? Isaac had taken his car this morning. Were there ambulances for pets? There should be. There should. But she knew there weren’t.
“Stay there,” she said, though Rufus hardly seemed capable of escape.
She burst out the mudroom door, ran across the back field, through the border trees, holding her belly against the jarring of the earth, watching with all her might for roots and vines that could send her flying, because of everything that had happened in her life, the one thing that could not happen, that she would not allow to happen, would be to hurt the baby in her haste.
Then she was at Lorrie’s back door, pounding, pounding. And there was Lorrie, a miracle in her jeans and work shirt, swinging open the door, horror flashing across her face. How she must look!
“It’s Rufus. He’s bleeding. He’s bleeding so bad!”
Lorrie pulled her inside. “Slow down. Tell me, where is he bleeding?”
“It’s his nose. It’s so much blood.”
“Have you tried pressure? Packing his nose?”
Evangeline nodded, gulping air. “It’s not slowing.”
“All right. Take a deep breath. Now another. Good. There’s an emergency vet in Chimacum. I’ll take you.”
“That’s twenty minutes from here. He could be dead by then.”
“It’s what we’ve got,” Lorrie said. Her voice was firm, an authoritative edge of command that soothed Evangeline’s heart. “Go back. Pinch his nostrils until I get there. I have some nasal spray that might help. Go! I’ll see you in your drive in a minute.”
Evangeline ran back to find Rufus crumpled on the floor. He must have tried to get up and collapsed. Blood pooled around his face. She squeezed his nostrils together, but of all the asinine things the animal could do, he closed his mouth when she did that, used his little strength to struggle with her, his eyes bulging in alarm.
“Breathe through your mouth, stupid! That’s what you always do anyway.”
After a minute, his eyes rolled up and his mouth fell open. He snorted a gulp of air, which roused him, made him close his mouth and struggle again.
Lorrie was at the back door holding a leash. When she saw him, she said, “Dear Lord, he’s not able to walk, is he?”
Evangeline let go of his nose and tried to lift him, but it was as if his legs had no bones. Lorrie was at his side, spraying each nostril a couple of times. And thank God, the bleeding slowed enough that the rag had a shot at keeping things under control.
“Good,” Lorrie said. “That’s good.” She handed Evangeline her car keys. “There’s a garbage bag and some towels in there. Line the backseat with the plastic, the towels on top. I’ll get him out there.”
Evangeline grabbed the keys and headed out. She had just finished laying down a thick layer of towels when she turned to see Lorrie, a woman who couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds, staggering toward the car carrying Rufus. Leaning back under his weight, she’d wrapped her arms around his chest, let his head and legs hang limp. Evangeline went to help, but Lorrie pushed past and flopped the dog into the backseat like a gunnysack.
“Get back there with him,” she said. “Keep pressure on his nose.”
“He doesn’t breathe when I do that.”
“He’ll breathe. Eventually.”
“Can I have the spray?”
Lorrie reached into her pocket and handed it to her. “Ask first. We don’t want to overdose him.”
Evangeline got in by Rufus’s head. Though her dress was ruined, she covered herself with a towel and set his head on her lap. She pressed the damp rag to his nose, careful not to block his mouth.
“Is a doctor always there?”
“I called. He’ll be there before us.”
As Lorrie pulled out of the drive, Evangeline stroked Rufus’s head. He couldn’t die. He needed to live for the baby, to help the baby get started in life. She kissed his forehead and whispered, “Don’t you die. Seriously, I mean it. Don’t you even think about it.”
* * *
—
WHEN THEY PULLED INTO THE GRAVEL LOT, the vet was waiting, smoking a cigarette in front of a low red building. He stubbed it out and sauntered over to help. Evangeline was furious. Wasn’t he acting a bit nonchalant? Was it even sanitary to smoke before seeing a patient? But when she saw him cradling Rufus’s head in the crook of his arm, heard him cooing, “That’s a good boy, we’ll get you fixed up,” she forgave him the cigarette, because his voice was soft and reassuring, almost musical, as if he knew precisely the rhythm and melody needed to save a dog from bleeding to death.