Free A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas Page B

and Nora were waiting, and he was happy to see them as he always is. We ate our big sandwiches and Rich had a couple of chocolate chip cookies, his favorite, but he didn't want coffee, which was just as well since there was no milk.
    "I've got to go," he said, getting up. "It's late." Sally and I looked at each other. We were only an hour into a lovely afternoon. Nora was eating Cheerios in her playpen, the dogs were sleeping in the sun, but Rich was headed for the door, determined to leave. All business.
    There was a new notebook on the counter. I'd bought it because of the color—a wonderful red, and for the green planets on its cover. I handed this to Rich, found a pen, and coaxed him back to the chair. "Here," I said, "you can get organized. Write all the things you need to do." He sat back down and leaning the notebook against his knee he began immediately to write. He looked like a reporter again. Was he thinking about camera crews and soundmen? Was he laying out procedures? The longer he wrote the more curious I got and finally I stood behind the chair and looked over his shoulder.
    "Corn for corn soup. Lettuce, cucumber for salad, along with tomatoes and some cheddar cheese. Kaliber and orange juice. Milk too. Apple juice too. Thicken sliced sandwich bread. Tuna fish, sardines, onions, ham, sardines. Crackers for the cheese."

NO
i
    Here is how I get my husband in the car: I lie. "I'm going to buy us something for dinner. Will you come with me?"
    This rainy October afternoon I stick a fake log in the fireplace and light it and we spend what Rich used to call the shank of the day in each other's company, dozing and waking to firelight. It is like being married again. But he can't stay. Sooner or later I have to get up from my chair and disturb him. I have to touch his arm, speak in his ear, jostle him. I have to coax him out of his warm chair and into the car so I can drive him back. "I'm going to get us something for dinner. Will you come with me?" This is what I hate: that he nods so willingly and gets to his feet. That it works every time.
    The dogs allow themselves to be corralled in the living room and Rich and I go slowly down the back steps, my arm under his left arm, his right hand on the banister. I am carrying a box of cookies and once he has gotten into the passenger seat and I've stretched the seat belt and he has buckled it, I give them over. "Chocolate chippers! I might have to have one," he says, opening the box. We are headed back to the Northeast Center for Special Care. I am trying not to feel anything. Now that we are on our way, I want to get it over with. I want to get him there and safely up to his room, then I want to leave as fast as I can. "Are we going to two markets?" Rich asks and I nod. But we drive past the Black Bear Deli and the Hurley Ridge Market without him noticing. We drive down Route 28, we pass the K&R Car Wash, and the single-story pink building that houses Catskill Mountain Organic Coffee, which roasts its own beans, we pass Thomas's Pest Control (Got Mice? Not Nice!) and take the turn for Route 209 North, and I hold my breath waiting to see if this time he will latch on to the fact that I am betraying him. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his hands around the container of cookies on his lap. I am trying not to feel anything.
    "It's been a lovely three days," says Rich, and I know he thinks we're on vacation. "What are our plans?" he asks. "Are we looking for a motel?" He is happy. I remember vacations. We were good companions. I remember the island of Nevis, where little birds ate sugar out of the bowls on our breakfast table. Rich took long runs down the beach and I read
Howards End,
inexplicably bursting into tears at the end. We had lobster salad sandwiches and fell in love with pelicans and wondered what living there all the time would be like.
    When we get to the nursing home Rich wants to leave the cookies in the car.
    "How will they know these are ours?" he asks.