Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller

Author:Danielle Geller [Geller, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

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CHRISTMAS MORNING, I take a bus to Nathan’s to feed his cat while he is home for the holidays. On the kitchen table, I find a six-pack of Pepsi and one of the discs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I had left in his DVD player when I moved out. Rupert Giles’s coquettish face gazes up at me, and a Post-it note tacked to the DVD reads, “Thanks Danielle! -Goob.”

I feel the prickling kitten claws of Nathan’s long-haired calico cat crawl up my leg, and I bend down to lift her onto my shoulder. I nuzzle my cheek into her soft rabbit fur and croon, “Hello, little Goob.”

I carry her through the empty apartment, which has been repainted with mute shades of tan and white. When we first moved in, the kitchen had been a light shade of green, which reminded me of my mother’s house in Florida, and the bathroom had been a rich goldenrod. I carry her into the living room, where two modern, plush sofas and an oversized loveseat dominate the floor space. Nathan’s mother had given us a set of heavy wood-frame sofas that reminded me of the ones my family had in Florida in our brown-and-tan trailer, but his girlfriend hated them. His new couches came from Bob’s Discount Furniture.

I sink down into one of the couches and let Goob pool into my lap. I scratch beneath her chin and smile at the soft vibration of her purrs. When I moved out, Nathan and I had been bickering. I left unwashed dishes in the sink and too many things in the living room. I didn’t help enough around the house. He would leave for months every summer, on grant-funded trips to Canada and Texas to study bats, and expected me to take care of Goob. Whenever he was gone, she paced around the house and cried; lost weight; groomed obsessively, which created a bald patch near the base of her tail. My presence wasn’t enough to calm her anxiety.

“She’s a cat,” he said, when I complained about his frequent, long absences. “They’re self-reliant. They don’t need people.”

Nothing I said would have made him change his mind.

I toss Goob’s fish around the living room and tell her I will be back.

It is already dark when I arrive home. I find a package on my porch—a gift from Nathan’s mother, who, even after we broke up in college, has mailed me presents for every major and minor holiday. I pick up the package and the stack of mail off the floor and, under the porch light, flip through the envelopes addressed to past residents.

My downstairs neighbor’s door cracks open an inch.

Startled, I glance up and smile. “Hi!” In the five months I’ve lived at the new apartment, we have never met before now.

He says nothing and closes the door.

I carry the package upstairs. Inside, I find Christmas-themed kitchen towels and potholders; a snowman-shaped marshmallow; two bars of soap made with goat’s milk; a sheet of bird stickers; two packages of cat treats; a pair of hand-knit turquoise gloves.

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