You Are Not What We Expected by Sidura Ludwig

Author:Sidura Ludwig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2020-04-13T20:05:21+00:00

* * *

Isaac drives to Elaine’s for the Chanukah dinner with the two cards for Ava and Adam on the passenger seat beside him. They are both light blue and Isaac is wondering why Chanukah colours have to be blue and white, the colours of the Israeli flag. Isaac lived in Israel when he was in his mid-twenties. He worked in the fields on a kibbutz. He ate red tomatoes and green cucumbers for breakfast with white sour yogurt. At Chanukah no one exchanged gifts. They just ate sufganiot, jelly doughnuts covered in white powdered sugar. Back then, it made him think of Canada and the snow-covered sidewalks, his sister Elaine and her girlfriends giggling as they slid along the ice in their wool coats, clutching each other’s arms. But he didn’t miss it. Instead, he felt the soft dough of the fresh pastry on his tongue, the sugar melting as soon as it touched his lips, the warmth of a room full of people with hands stained brown from the sun and the mud, like those Maccabee warriors from the Chanukah story, living in the hills, planning something wonderful.

When Isaac hits the dog, turning onto Elaine’s street, he thinks he’s hit a squirrel.

“Shit,” he says as he drives up the road, parks beside the curve outside Elaine’s house. Those damn creatures dart out into the streets always at the wrong time, like they’re playing chicken. He didn’t even have a chance to react. A flash and then a thud and then the slight bump under his tires. In L.A., Isaac once saw a coyote lying by the side of the highway, its fur blown up by the desert wind, its mouth open slightly, as if in mid-snarl. But the rest of its body was flat, as if the stuffing had been removed. As Isaac drove on then, he thought, Well, at least it wasn’t someone’s pet.

And now, Isaac jumps out of his car and runs back down the icy street, calling, “Cookie!” before he can stop anything from coming out of his mouth. Even at this distance, he can tell that the dog is on his side, his body flattened. Isaac bends down where Cookie lies curled on the road, blood pooling from his mouth and around his tongue, flopped to the side. The blood is dark, almost black against the pavement.

“Stupid dog,” Isaac says, kneeling down on the ground, putting his hand on Cookie’s back. He can feel the dog’s cracked ribs, and then he notices the way the legs are splayed, twisted like Ava’s splits.

“Shit,” he says again. “Shit, shit, shit.”

From down the block, Isaac hears someone call his name. He looks up and can just make out Ava’s silhouette on Elaine’s driveway. She’s frozen on the spot. She’s just in a T-shirt and leggings. Her voice sounds small and light when she calls out, “Is that you?”

Isaac gets up and calls back, “Go back inside. I just thought I hit a squirrel.”

“Did you?”

He stands directly in front of Cookie.

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