Her words are poison traveling through my veins. They make me sick.
“You did what?”
My mother’s too scared to breathe through the phone; she should have known I would react like this. This is my homecoming, my “welcome home, Spencer!” banner hanging from the living room walls, in a home that I haven’t belonged to in ages. A home where the holes in the white walls are hidden underneath cheap paintings from the clearance sections of various department stores, a home where the walls are too narrow for breathing, where my room was not a safe haven but a prison in which all my fears were met.
“You’re in no place to take care of an animal, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk you into giving her away. I’m your mother, I know-"
My mother: a cold woman with dry blond hair and a forever aging face. My mother: who has dismissed - and continues to dismiss – my episodes with a diagnosis of, “it’s just a phase.” My mother: who long since lost the ability to look me in the eye when we speak.
Clenching the phone, my rage builds to an immeasurable amount; it sends my head spinning in circles just to process whatever the hell’s going on
“And I am an adult. You were supposed to watch her, not give her up! God, you haven’t changed at all, have you?”
“I was just-“
“Where did you put her, then?"
It takes her a few seconds to respond. I’m seething, and I can already feel the sticky sweat latching onto the tiny strings of fabric on my clothes.
“Just that shelter a couple blocks from here, they don’t euthanize them over there, she’s just fine-"
“How long ago?” I care no longer for this woman or her explanations. I need facts, and I need to find my dog.
“A week ago.”
My mother: a self-proclaimed know-it all, an unofficial psychologist, a tyrant.
“You kept her a week? You should get a medal. Thanks for nothing.” I hang up, dropping the phone and leaving it to charge while I grab my keys and leave.
I don’t bother to lock the door. Nothing of value to me lies inside anymore.
And I’m reunited with the dirty, old Nissan. It’s safe to say I miss driving, I miss the option of being outside. It reminds me of the paper medical bracelet around my wrist, and I rip it off and throw it on the ground.
While I drive, I pray, I pray to anything, to anyone, that she’s there. That my Ilsa is waiting for me in one of those awful cages, waiting patiently for me like she always does when I’m away at school. It’s the most I can do to keep from losing it all over again. Ilsa is all I have left, and I’m not losing her because of my idiot of a mother.
Despite my nerves, I hold my head high, receiving nasty looks for my mangled appearance, from hair I didn’t bother to brush today, from sweats and a t-shirt that, no doubt, make me appear homeless.
I need to get her back.
And I can hear the sounds of dogs barking from the outside, I can smell a mixture of shit and kibble, and I parade through the entrance, wasting no time before approaching a receptionist.
“My bitch of a mother gave away my dog, she said she sent her here, and I’m here to get her back. Her name’s Ilsa, it would have been on her collar if my mom bothered to keep it. She’s a mutt, yellow fur, about yea big, forty pounds or so.”
