The Dogfathers

 

 

How my companion dwells in his parents' absence is instructive. I only know his parents through the signs of them in the old photos taken at family gatherings on his dresser—a shrine or altar really. All nestled around the expensive and showy bulto of the Virgin of Guadalupe we bought in Mexico City. …and know them through his ailments—the same that eventually killed his parents: a faulty heart and diabetes. He knows what’s likely in store but rarely talks about it and lives calmly, contentedly, between health crises.

His mother was the great love of his life. He recounts sitting at the dinette smoking a cigarette with her, a privilege she would only share with him. It seems that during such times she taught him the ways of her motherhood. Among his eight brothers and sisters he has long been the broker of family negotiations. Consoling, encouraging, sometimes chastising—even once beating up a violent brother-in-law. Often to my annoyance he is the family banker. An occasional insurance payment, money for a quinceañera. (For all his generosity we prosper.)

My companion tells me of how he set his father straight. It was the last pivotal night his father came home drunk expecting to hit his mother as was his habit. It was the night my companion became the family arbiter. The night he freed his father from drinking; freed him to become an old man who would eventually die surrounded by his children; loved, not hated.

But do I really know what is in the forest of his heart? The thing he guards the most is his weariness of life. He sleeps little and works long. Once, when I wanted to leave him an exhausted despair escaped from his scarred rib cage like a baby goat before the matanza. It darted from his chest with a bleating inhuman noise, a scream to God to end everything. I have heard that sound before and know it to be a call to witness. Who else could glimpse the labyrinth of solitude made of void with walls of absence?

My parents live still, and they still live drawing an image of marriage that has given them status and authority. I learned of their affairs—some of them many years long—as an adult. Late I learned how fear of poverty and hardship keeps some women in unhappy unions. Late I learned how many men are embittered to find that marriage does not answer longing. Yet my parents remain together, each witnessing the other’s primal solitude I suppose. I don’t visit often.

Chiquita and Squeaky frolic. Both Chihuahuas, she is the tea-cup with the heart-shaped mask; he is much larger with long legs and looks like a miniature sight hound. We tried to breed them once, but she miscarried two of her three puppies. When the third died ten days later, our household was a very sad one. Even Squeaky seemed to know he had lost his children, and we all lost weight. I think Squeaky is too big for her. We must get them spayed and neutered. But for now they shoot from one end of the yard to the other like little deer, ecstatic, smiling. Completely absorbed with each other.

Early in the morning when I leave his side I lie down naked on the kitchen floor and let the little dogs stretch, lick my face and curl up beside me. Sometimes Squeaky will spoon Chiquita. In these moments our happiness is rich and authentic.