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emma-poole · 5 years

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I dream of Robin before I meet her. The shelter in Long Island tells me there are three dogs particularly in need of homes. We have one. Not the youngest...or the most photogenic in her picture, but she has a special demeanor and needs someone who will give her a loving environment. She’s been sitting in the shelter for two years and no one wants her because she is a middle-aged Pitbull. I twist her name around in my mouth. R o b i n. It is not a name I would ever choose for a dog.

I am 25 years old, newly out of a string of unfulfilling relationships, nostalgic for a dog-filled childhood. A yoga colleague has put me in touch with a local rescue. I sign on as a foster. As a child, I rolled around with my dogs in the backyard, muddying my knees and hands to crouch in the grass and watch the bugs from their level. A home video captures me at 3 years old, screaming to my mom from across the yard that I would like to see where Stella pooped. Stella is our dog. I browse the shelter’s website. Scrolling through each cute, tragic face, my cursor comes to a halt. Robin. Age 4. She is chocolate brown with big, honey eyes. Sitting on on her hind-legs, pink belly exposed, her head is fixed in the classic pitbull tilt, furrowed brow, discerning. I smile. Contrary to their disclaimer, she is absolutely photogenic.

King is a giant pitbull puppy with big ears and a loppy gait. He wags his tail as he approaches, jumps in my lap, nuzzling his enormous head on my thighs. Eponine arrives next. Eponine! I immediately feel connected to her because of the name- I played Eponine in Les Miserables my sophomore year of highschool. She is older, a bit more reserved. Her eyes reflect the weariness of a hard life. I am told she does not interact well with other dogs. I stroke her malt and white fur, tell her she is beautiful and that I wish I could adopt them all. She softens beneath my touch. I kiss her forehead and mentally curse the humans that landed her here.

Robin is brought out last. She is both sheepish and energetic, seemingly overwhelmed with being out of her pen. I take her for a supervised walk around the perimeter of the shelter. She is one of our best walkers, they boast. I feel like I’m walking a bullet. Her little dumpling body tugs at the leash, happy to lead me anywhere but here, away from a closed cage, free amidst the cloying winter air. She stops to sniff every shred of garbage, gingerly peeing when she lands at a piece deemed worthy. Squatting down, her saggy nipples just barely brush the pavement beneath her, a result of over-breeding and improper after-birth procedure. They tell me she was found roaming the streets post-partum. I think of the babies she doesn’t know, how many puppies she must have birthed and where they are now. We give her a bath. She looks mortified and slightly degraded, but keeps her body perfectly still. Her courage makes my heart ache.

They give me a pound of kibble in a large sandwich bag, a new collar, and a bright red coat with fur accents. Robin sits in the backseat of Linda’s jeep the entire drive home from Long Island to my apartment in Washington Heights. Linda runs the shelter, and has offered to drive me to and from the visitation. She is British, zany, and a hero in my eyes, devoting her life to the cause. We pull up to the curb. Paperwork has been filled out. Background checks made. Payment handed over. It is January 31st, 2015. I am about to have the hardest year of my life. Thankfully, the universe swoops in and sends me Robin.

And so it goes that the longest and most intimate relationship I have ever shared with a living creature is not a human one. And I have an abundance of beautiful, magic humans in my life.

It is January 31st, 2019. Four years have passed since that fateful day. She sits at the edge of my bed as I write this, curled up in a brown half-moon, licking her paws and occasionally her vagina. She acts oblivious to me until I adjust my foot, disrupting her head position. I wink. She blinks. We have a rhythm. I can no longer imagine life without her

You know all my secrets. The weird things I do at night when we are alone in the room. Every conversation I have with myself. You hear me pray- to God, to the universe, to any ominous presence that will listen. I wonder how many times you’ve heard me play out a hypothetical conversation with past boyfriends, or their new loves, or the news anchor who exists solely in mind and asks, head perched, so Emma. Tell us what sparked the idea for your latest book? I speak to you in Australian and British accents, reminding you how gorgeous you are for the 23rd time in one hour. You think nothing of it, and even if you do, you don’t blink. Instead, you tilt your quizzical head, lift your snout, and and lick my eyebrow.

I try not to inhale every time I pick your poop up off the sidewalk. The amount of shit that comes out of your body could make a grown man pass out. And yet, no matter how many measures I take , I catch your lingering scent, at once proud of and disgusted by the aroma you are capable of producing. Your tail goes completely straight during the process, like a magic wand warning passersby to keep their distance. You hold eye contact each time. I’ve been told this is because you feel vulnerable and are making sure I have your back, if anything were to happen. I love you enough to get poop on my finger one out of the five times I clean yours up, although it is unfathomable to me that after four years I still haven’t mastered a method that prevents this at all costs. Still, we carry on. Across the street, a dog owner kneels down for the scoop. Solidarity. Dont fuck with me, it implies. I’m holding a steaming bag of shit.

The first time you see me have sex, you leap up in defense, assuming I am being hurt. What must you think of this tangled show. Of masturbation. The sounds I make when I come. I think you’d probably prefer not to see me in the act, as it crosses a vague line between us, despite the fact that you stare at me every time I pee, change my tampon, and parade around the bedroom naked.

You hate the vacuum. Are triggered by skateboarders, cyclists, and really any quick moving inanimate object. Trainers presume that you were abused, kicked, which is why you sometimes try to eat people’s feet. You are both incredibly affectionate and aloof in chosen moments, often elsewhere in your own far off world, until you hear the sound of a bag of chips crinkling in the kitchen. You get annoyed when I spend too much time on my phone, preferring candlelight to the blue glow of the screen. You’d rather I not take your picture, although you tolerate it long enough to satisfy me. I have never seen eyes widen as much as yours when I open a can of tuna, cook bacon, or grill chicken. To this day, you keep your entire body still when taking a bath, stoic but tolerant, holding out for the treat you are inevitably promised after. The second you leave the bathroom, you run at full speed around the apartment, rubbing your back on each exposed brick that lines our hallway. You are a piece of furniture, a fixture of our shared space. I feel you even when you’re not in the room, which is rare, as this apartment is your palace, the first place you called home. You are worth every dog hair on my bed, each crumb of dirt caked onto the bed sheet, and the million strands of fur I pick off my leggings at the start of every subway ride.

Sometimes I catch you looking in the mirror watching me watch you looking. You study the faces I make when I change clothes 7 times only to put on the original outfit I took off. On the days I work early, you doze back to sleep as I get ready, waiting for the moment I crack open the coconut oil to moisturize my skin. You love coconut oil. Despite it being one of the reasons you are probably fat, after my arms and legs are glistening from its sheen, I swirl my finger in the container and let you have your moment, licking your lips long after there is anything left to taste.

Warfare breaks out each time I leave the house, as though you have been robbed of your dignity. I wish I could tell you that I’ll be back and you’d believe it wholeheartedly, knowing I am always coming home to you, that you are the best part of my day. I wish you knew how much I talk about you to my students, to strangers, to anyone willing to listen. I once stopped seeing a guy with the softest lips I have ever kissed because he found it perpetually odd that we sleep in bed together.

It’s true. You are my most steadfast sleeping companion. You like to plop your 60 pound bum directly on top of my pillow, dead-weight, until I nudge you enough that you roll over, carefully side-eyeing me to sleep. When you want to be completely submerged beneath the covers, you shuffle your paws in an effort to move the blanket aside, using your mouth as a third hand, pushing everything into a messy heap until you’ve achieve your desired outcome. I warm my feet under your belly at night. In the morning, we wake up head to head, your muzzle on the pillow next to mine, eyes peaceful slits, breath toasty. I am convinced our breathing syncs up in our sleep, that when you have a bad dream, the weight of our bodies next to each other comforts you out of it. When I watch you tremble, paws twitching, I place my palm gently on your belly, and you relax. Recently, after waking from a bad nightmare, sheets soaked and my heart pounding, your body is the first surface my hand reaches out for.

I talk about your death often, mostly as a coping mechanism for my brain. I imagine having your ashes molded into a ring I could wear, joke about getting you taxidermied, a stuffed Robin head for the rest of time, casually perched on my living room wall. Oh that old thing? She was my first dog! Can you imagine people’s reactions? They already think I’m more obsessed with you than the average person. My cousin once expressed genuine concern that I will never love someone as much as I love you. I laughed, amused at the notion. But is it really possible for humans to love each other as unselfishly as you love me? We are always wanting something in return. Ownership. Possession. Validating to be validated. All you have ever asked of me is to show up.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, you bark suddenly, awakened by a footstep in the hallway or the sound of the moon howling out the window. I watch your moving lump struggle to break free under the covers, tiny limbs flailing in every direction, driven by new urgency. You leap off the bed, ears perked, alert. You are my nightwatch. In the blackness of the room, my eyes trace your outline guarding the door. I know, with more certainty than I know anything else in this world, that if that door were to open and you sensed danger, you would lay your brave, beating heart in front of mine, and armor my body with your own. I have never trusted anyone with my life as much as I trust you. Your unabashed instinct to protect makes me want to wrap my whole body around you, and whisper, over and over again, I don’t think you will ever realize how much more I need you than you need me. You are my biggest teacher, my most stubborn shadow, my earth angel.

Robby lou. My sweet peach. Potato puff pumpkin head. For all of the time I spend wondering about the complexities of the universe- why we are here, how we began, and where we continue onto, I live in gratitude that for a brief period of my little life, you chose me.

Someday you will not be here. And I will. That seems like the biggest injustice of them all. Because why would I ever want to live in a world without you? Perhaps, though, that is also the lesson: to celebrate, rather than cling to, the time we are given.

You are the biggest gift in my life, you beautiful weirdo. Thank you for keeping me in the moment, accepting me without judgment, and bringing me back to myself again and again.

Robin Noodle. My Sun and my moon. My north star. Goodnight, sleeping beauty, I whisper. See you on the other side.

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