WHAT DOROTHY SAID: How are you, Doc? Are you all right yourself? she asked. I’m okay, I said. I’ve been busy. It seems that people are calling me who don’t even really need me. I got a call from a man named Brody, lives near me. You know him? I said. Dorothy shook her head. You’re up a ways from me. I don’t go north of here much. He must be new to here, she said. Anyway, I said, he had a horse with nothing wrong with him. Don’t you think that’s strange? I said. To spend the money on a call to a vet when nothing’s wrong? Dorothy laughed. Well, Doc, she said, that’s just what I did here to you. Seems that Brody isn’t the only one to blame, she said.
WHAT I TOOK THAT TO MEAN: That Dorothy didn’t think Brody was the one who shot my son and I could now narrow it down to only 599 people instead of 600.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: In order to cut costs on health insurance, everyone should be enrolled in an exercise program. Everyone enrolled should receive a discount on the cost of their health insurance. Everyone would be healthier. Everyone would live longer.
CALL: A horse who is depressed.
ACTION: Drove to the farm in the arctic cold. My truck’s thermometer said it was minus 17 degrees. The girl who owned the horse was a checkout girl at the grocery store. The girl said she had seen me in there before with my wife and children. You buy a lot of eggs, the girl said. You should buy yourself some laying hens. I couldn’t agree more, I said. I thought the girl was good. She could help in my search. She probably knew the man who had shot my son. She had probably sold him beer, slid the six-pack across her conveyor belt, swiped his card through the machine. She knew his name, had seen it printed on the back of the card, had seen it printed on the receipt she handed back to him along with the points he had earned in the “fill-her-up for free” gas program. I bet you know a lot about the people around here, I said.
WHAT THE GIRL SAID: You can tell some things about what people buy.
WHAT I SAID: Like what?
WHAT SHE SAID: Like things you don’t want to know. Like when they’re on the rag and when they’ve got hemorrhoids. The druggies, they used to buy the baby formula in the huge cans, but we’ve stopped that now, only so much allowed per customer. I hate watching it, she said, their veiny, dirty fingers holding the can, covering the picture of the cute baby. You know how a woman’s mad at her husband? she said. No, tell me, I said. She buys tons of stuff. She buys stuff that’s mostly not even food. You don’t buy frying pans, something to remind you of how you have to cook for him, when you’re flaming furious at your husband. You buy makeup and hair product. You buy the body oil and bath beads, she said.
WHAT I SAID: What about the guys? I mean, how do you know when they’re feeling angry or guilty? Or a criminal, I said, what do they buy? But the girl looked at her horse. I had spent too much time on the subject. I had not timed it right. I would have to wait for another time. The girl was done talking about the checkout line. Is he going to be all right? she said.
The horse was an old Thoroughbred. The horse had his head hanging down, but the strange thing was the horse had his tongue hanging out of his mouth. I reached in and felt his tongue. I could move it from side to side. The horse did not or could not pull his tongue back in. I went to the back of the horse and lifted his tail. He let me lift it up high. He let me swing it from side to side. Swinging it that way created a breeze. The checkout girl wrapped her arms around herself. The checkout girl tucked her head down, into the collar of her parka. Look at this, I told the checkout girl, this isn’t right, I said as I kept swinging the tail back and forth and lifting it high and letting it drop. Wow, the girl said. I took the horse’s temperature. It was normal. These are classic signs of botulism, I said. The girl nodded. Do you know what botulism is? I said. The girl shook her head. It affects the horse’s central nervous system. That’s why he’s sick, but he doesn’t have a temperature. That’s why his muscles are affected and his tongue sticks out and his tail is so easy to move.
RESULT: I took a blood on the horse. It could be botulism, I said. I’ll let you know soon, I said. If he goes down in the next twenty-four hours before the blood results come back, he will not get up again. You cannot get a horse sick with botulism up from the ground if he has decided to go down. They will almost always die.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: What if I send this blood off and it freezes in the mail before it reaches the lab? Is it too cold for the spacecraft to fly in this weather? Is this why I haven’t seen the spacecraft for days?
WHERE I STOP ON THE WAY HOME: Phil’s. I walk the three aisles of the store, my feet making the wooden floorboards creak as I look at items like gravy in jars with dusty lids and I think if I stand around long enough, maybe the man who shot my son will walk in and will tell Phil something as Phil stands behind the meat counter, slicing roast beef. He will tell Phil how he was out hunting for grouse weeks ago and has to admit he hit something he thought might not have been a grouse, and has Phil heard of anyone hurt in the woods? When I realize the likelihood of that ever happening is zero, I buy some milk and drive home.
WHAT THE HOUSE SAYS: I have been tricked by the wind.
WHAT THE THERMOMETER INSIDE THE HOUSE SAYS: 53 degrees.
WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAY: Add more wood, Poppy. Add more wood.
WHAT THE WIFE COOKS FOR DINNER: Roast chicken with giblets alongside the chicken, all of it roasted. All the giblets dry and brown.
WHAT I TELL THE CHILDREN: Don’t eat the skin. It’s fatty. Don’t eat the liver. Do you know what the liver is? Do you know what the liver does? The liver stores all of the toxins inside the body. Why would you want to eat it?
WHAT THE CHILDREN DO: Eat the liver and the skin. The skin especially. They can’t get enough of it. They fight over it. The good meat, the white meat, they don’t like. They leave it on their plates, but on the bones they chew off the cartilage and suck on the marrow.
WHAT MIA PULLS OUT OF HER POCKET FOR SAM WHEN WE ARE VISITING HIM AT THE HOSPITAL: A wizened cooked chicken heart she saved from her meal. The heart is his favorite, she says, and she puts it next to his ear on his pillow. Ugh! Sarah says and turns away.
WHAT THE NURSE SAYS WHEN SHE COMES INTO THE ROOM: It happened again today. It’s here in the notes. His foot moved again.
WHAT MY WIFE DOES: Grabs the notes from the nurse and reads them. It’s not just his foot, she says. It’s also his eyes! We all look to Sam’s eyes. The lids are closed, but Sarah says she swears she saw his eyeballs moving back and forth.
WHAT MIA SAYS: It’s the chicken heart, I know it. It’s giving him dreams.
CALL: Helga Bartlett says her old dog needs putting down.
ACTION: Drove to Helga Bartlett’s house. The dog ran up to me and wagged his tail. The dog sniffed my pants and wagged his tail. The dog looked up at me with smiling eyes and wagged his tail.
RESULT: I could not put Helga Bartlett’s dog down. Helga, I said, maybe it’s just not his time.
WHAT HELGA SAID: Yesterday, it was his time. Yesterday, he could not walk. He lay on the floor by the fire hardly breathing. Yesterday, he did not eat.