The Paris Review - Fall 2016

“Sure. There’s no reason to lie.”
“Of course not! I don’t know why my mom’s so crazy.”
Emily went down and fed Simha a bowl of broth. She decided to take
her on a walk to the park. Simha was walking in a straight line, but her eyes
still looked vacant, and she didn’t run as much as usual. When Emily had her
sit, Simha still had trouble standing.
David called Emily after he spoke to the vet. He told her they wanted
her to bring Simha in at eleven. He said, “The vet thinks she probably got
hurt at the groomer’s. My mom said the same thing. They said it happens
all the time.”
“Thank you. My mom was making me panic. She thinks it’s my fault,
that it’s something I did. It’s not something I did, is it?”
“Of course it’s not something you did,” he said. “I’ve got a good story
about your mom. The other day, when I brought her that Dr Pepper, she
went, Where is this Dr Pepper from?
“I told her it was just an ordinary Dr Pepper, and she told me there was
some place in Temple, Texas. The man who runs this Dr Pepper factory
promised his father he would never deviate from the original Dr Pepper
recipe, so he still uses cane sugar. She told me Dr Pepper made with cane
sugar has a ‘peppery quality.’ Then she took a sip of the Dr Pepper I’d given
her and frowned, like, And this is not cane sugar, buddy. I wanted to take the
Dr Pepper out of her hand and pour it down the drain.”
THE RECEPTIONIST SPOKE in a soothing voice.
“Has she been eating?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “She had three bowls of food. She has been eating dirt.
This morning, she ate some chicken soup.”
“What was the chicken soup made of ?”
“It was just a chicken stock, like a human would eat, with carrots and
chicken pieces.”
“I might suggest, if you do give her broth, to give her a little bit of rice
with it, otherwise the fat can be hard on her tummy. Has she been eating her
regular food?”
“Yes, except I gave her a bone, and she took it, but then she just lay
beside it.”
“This was a . . . chicken bone?”
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