The Dog Park. Laura Caldwell

       7

      The next call surprised me even more than my mom’s.

      Sebastian.

      He’d seen the video online, and he actually sounded a tad excited himself. Not like my mom had, but definitely amused, interested.

      “Isn’t it hysterical?” I told Sebastian about Baxter darting and Vinnie shooting the whole thing.

      We fell right into conversation, the way we used to a long time ago—no awkward “Hi, how ya been feeling? Okay, how about you?” chitchat.

      When something like this happened—rarely, I grant you—it made me remember that when we were “us,” Sebastian and I had a hell of a lot of fun.

      One of the reasons I’d shut down my online dating profile without even going on a date was because I feared that no one could be quite as fun as Sebastian when he wanted to be. And I knew fun, having been deeply involved (way too deep, it would turn out) in my teens and twenties with a touring rock band.

      The problem, toward the end of us, was Sebastian hadn’t desired much fun with me. It had made me terribly wistful—remembering the days when Sebastian was on, when we were engaged. Sometimes, he would wake me at five in the morning and he would make some crazy dish—whatever he’d found at the ready-market that morning, whatever his imagination lit upon. Once, it was pretzels and scrambled eggs with cheese and hot sauce. His were the most bizarre breakfasts and the most delicious because he infused them with that fun. He brought that sense of fun to each day. He loved to “call an audible,” as he put it, hitting a last-minute Cubs game, or going to see a blues band at Kingston Mines.

      But there was no such fun like that in the last year of our marriage. It was one of the factors that made me say, Okay, let’s give up.

      But the conversation about our child dog was fun. “And you know it was on the news,” I told Sebastian.

      “What do you mean?” He didn’t sound so amused. “Who was on the news?”

      “Baxter. On Pamela’s morning show. It wasn’t just a video on the internet.”

      He groaned.

      “What?”

      “They must have been desperate.”

      “It was cute,” I said. “And then my mom called from New York. It was on their news, too.”

      “Are you kidding?”

      I ignored the slightly scornful tone.

      “My mom called,” I repeated. I knew that would stop him. He knew I had issues with my parents that had been visited and revisited at therapists’ offices.

      “Oh?” he said.

      “Yeah. We had a great conversation.”

      I told Sebastian about it. And maybe he was in a good mood—maybe because I’d mentioned my parents and he knew that could be a tough situation for me—because soon, he softened, I could tell. It was his tone when he responded, asked questions, it was the volume of his voice, too, that showed his level of interest. I was awarded with his full attention—questions illuminated with years of hearing about Simon and Muriel Champlin.

      “How old are they now?” he said.

      “Sixty-six. My mom’s sixty-five.”

      “My mom’s seventy next year.” He told me of his own recent conversations with his mom. Not that his mom was anything like mine. On the contrary, she loved and adored Sebastian so much that I was pretty sure that she was secretly relieved at our divorce. That should have made me feel bitter, I suppose, but instead it only made me feel more wistful when I thought of the kind of mother’s love and adoration he got from her.

      Sebastian scoffed. “I can’t believe the dog was on the news out in the sticks.”

      It was the scoff that brought me back. I had heard that scoff too many times.

      “What’s up, Hess?” I said, putting on a chummy tone. “You’ve got a problem with your dog being on a video?”

      “Well, it’s not news.”

      I wanted to bite back. But that would only start up an argument. I changed the topic, and we talked for a few minutes about nothing.

      And as often happened when Sebastian and I had some kind of clash on the phone, or in this case a near clash, I took to walking around the condo, Baxter, our de facto kid, at my feet. We had spent time designing and decorating every room. The condo was our first real place together (he’d moved into mine when we were in New York). There was the joint office, and the master bedroom with the Moroccan-inspired leather headboard, the wide-planked hardwood floors we’d chosen for throughout the rest of the condo. We’d done it together. Hence, this condo was ours. I still felt like that most of the time.

      But when we fought, and I walked the place, that’s when I could remind myself that this was mine now.

      It took some of the sting away from Sebastian’s haughty opinions about what constituted news. I don’t know if he ever understood how much it hurt when he did that, especially back when I was working for a local magazine he considered “just a society rag—it’s a grown-up yearbook.”

      That reminder rankled me, and I asked how his trip was going, just to bug him.

      I got a few mumbled words in response.

      “C’mon, where are you?” I asked, not because I thought he’d tell me, but more because I wanted to needle him.

      “Jess,” was all he said in a tight voice.

      I sighed.

      I went into the kitchen with its 1950s dining chairs and the kitchen table, which had been Sebastian’s grandfather’s worktable, adorned with new legs.

      “You’re back when?” I said. Another jab.

      But he didn’t take the bait. “I do love you, Jess,” Sebastian said.

      I waited, then muttered, “I love you, too.” Even though it didn’t matter.

      We were both silent.

      “Sebastian,” I said his name back to him. Not with a question mark, just said it.

      At his name, Baxy seemed to have realized who I was talking with. He’d been playing with an old sock of Sebastian’s, but then his head shot up and he ran over, jumped on a kitchen chair, black nose in the air, pink tongue hanging from his mouth in a happy pant.

      We fell quiet again, and in the silence of me and Sebastian, I leaned over and stroked Baxter’s neck. He stretched his head up to allow more.

      Then Sebastian had to go, and I said goodbye. I’m not sure he heard me.

      When I hung up, Baxter looked at me, then looked around, his eyes quickly scanning the room, darting back to me. I could hear him thinking, But where is he?

      “Gone,” I said. “Gone.”