Savage Love by Douglas Glover Page B

it?”
    I groaned. “Listen, Lily,” I said, “you can’t talk to her any more. You ’ll break her heart. I was going to let her down easy.”
    â€œI think she’s here,” said Lily. “She thought it was kind of funny when I told her we meet up for quickies when you walk the dog.”
    â€œYou’ll ruin everything,” I said.
    â€œYeah, yeah, yeah,” she said. “I’ll send her back in an hour.”
    I poured myself an Old Crow on the rocks and sat on the toilet seat while the girls splashed happily in the tub. They were wild, sensing something violent and threatening in the atmosphere. Before I knew it, they were taking turns sliding headfirst down the back of the tub, sending waves of soapy water whooshing onto the bathroom floor. Sophie knocked her forehead on the spout and started to bleed. Forehead wounds are bleeders, always look worse than they are. She bled into the tub, where the blood swirled and coiled like red smoke, then turned cloudy and dark, more blood than I’d ever seen before. I clamped a washcloth over the wound, but the blood seeped through and dripped down her nose. The two littler girls started to shriek in panic. I shouted at them to get in their PJs. They tracked blood down the hallway to their room. I put Sophie’s hand on the washcloth and went to pour myself another bourbon.
    In the kitchen, I rinsed the empty ice cube tray and refilled it, listening to my hysterical children in the background. The dog was barking at some phantom out the sliding door at the back. I could see the driveway. Ellen had taken the Saab. That sucker was about to be repossessed, I thought. Enjoy it while you can. I drank my drink and shouted at the girls to get their bathrobes on. We were going to take Sophie to the Emergency Room. I poured another drink.
    Isobel came into the kitchen with her hamster cage in her arms. She said, “I think Pinky is dead.” Her face was ashen, her tone grim. Sophie sobbed somewhere in the depths of the house.
    I gulped back the drink and pushed past Isobel to the bathroom. I was a little drunk. I began to wonder if there were arteries in the forehead. Sophie was rinsing the washcloth in the sink while fresh blood bubbled out of her brow. I wrapped her in a towel and picked her up, carried her to the bedroom, and started putting her in underpants and PJs. Isobel came in after us, looking tragic.
    The phone rang. It was Ellen.
    â€œWe have a situation here,” I said.
    â€œYou rat,” she said. “You utter shit.”
    â€œPinky died,” I said. “Maybe it’s not the best time to talk this over.”
    â€œI’m at Lily’s apartment,” she said. “How old is this girl?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “Maybe twenty-five, twenty-six.”
    â€œShe’s twenty- one, ” said my wife. “I can’t believe you did this.” Her voice contained a note of malicious glee. Like many of us, my wife felt obscurely persecuted most of the time. No doubt it was a relief to find her paranoid fancies confirmed.
    â€œListen,” I said, “I really think I should — Jesus, can you bleed to death from the forehead?”
    â€œThe hamster is bleeding to death?” she asked.
    â€œNo,” I said. “Sophie hit her head in the tub. It’s pretty bad. I ’m taking her to the ER .”
    â€œOh, Christ,” she said. “Wait there for me.”
    â€œNo, I’ll meet you,” I said. “I think I’d better get a move on.”
    I changed Sophie out of her bloody pyjamas and put fresh ones on and wrapped a towel around her head as tight as I could. Isobel stood there peering gravely down at her hamster. It looked as if it might just be sleeping soundly. “Did you poke it?” I asked. “Shake the cage a little.” I watched the hamster bounce up and down in a cloud of wood shavings. It was sleeping very