At first Kimmy overfed the pit bull as its sort of reward for having devoured her ex-husband, but then the pit bull got chronic diarrhea and every time she saw the dog’s steaming porridge in the grass, she thought that maybe some of Tom’s skin and bowels were mixed in there with the shit. And diarrhea was revolting enough without the suggestion of human remains. So Kimmy started serving cans of Alpo instead of the ham omelets and other rich fare she’d grown accustomed to cooking for her newly adopted dog.
She’d fought like hell to gain custody of the pit bull. The local authorities had wanted to put it down, as if her ex-husband’s body had given the dog an unquenchable bloodthirst. Kimmy pleaded sentiment. She just wanted something to remember Tom by, she said. An animal that had been by her ex’s side until the end. Whether or not Tom had actually harbored tender feelings toward the dog was TBD. Kimmy had known nothing about her ex being a pet owner until the police finally tracked her down to identify the body. Tom’s untreated diabetes was also news to her. They’d been divorced for three years. Medical problems tend to spring up out of nowhere in middle age. Karma, in some cases.
In the dimly lit morgue, the bite marks were cleaner than Kimmy had expected. The dog had obviously taken its time, reluctantly picking apart the decaying corpse just to keep from starving. With her, the act would’ve been about vengeance, but with the pit bull, it just seemed like survival pure and simple.
“Come here, you chubby thing,” she said to the dog, scooping Alpo into its bowl on the kitchen floor. She considered the glistening food and decided to remove half of it with her spoon. “No fatties,” she warned the dog. Tom had started gaining weight toward the end of their marriage. The last time they’d had sex his belly had flopped unnaturally against her pelvis despite his sucking in. But Tom had never had much in the way of abdominal muscles. He always sank into a chair like an overtoasted marshmallow onto a graham cracker. She couldn’t imagine that his insides would’ve been very satisfying. She, personally, had never liked the taste.
“That’s enough,” she said to the dog, who was nearly done eating. “Now go play.” She tugged the collar out the back door so the pit bull would take some exercise in the yard. Through the window above the sink, she watched the dog settle in some tree shade, then blink at her sullenly as Tom used to do from the couch when his feelings were hurt. She wished she had a tennis ball to throw in the pit bull’s direction.
At first the dog thought her bed was off limits. Tom must not have allowed it to sleep with him in the old house where he’d beaten her. But Kimmy wanted the pit bull up there beside her. “Yoo-hoo,” she said as it crouched in the hallway. Then she patted the flannel sheets and the dog sprang up, always keeping a respectful distance from her face as if mindful of its cannibal breath. She remembered sleeping next to Tom for all those many years, and how his sleep apnea sometimes got so bad that he’d spontaneously stop breathing and she’d have to shake him awake. It was hard to doze off again after one of those incidents. She’d stare at his chest instead. It rose, it fell, it rose again, always in a rhythm that she couldn’t parse. In those moments her love for him was almost indistinguishable from a nightmare. She woke up irritable with dark circles under her eyes, resentful of the claim put on her by a man’s erratic lungs. She would never marry again.
Someone had cleaned up the dog before Kimmy took it home. She’d been prepared for blood and gore around the muzzle and paws, but at the pound she encountered a clean, rather chirpy animal who seemed eager to ride in the backseat of her Hyundai. It wasn’t until a few weeks later when she met with the dog’s deep shame. She pulled the framed picture of Tom from the back of her underwear drawer and pressed it close to the dog’s face. “Our old master,” she said. The pit bull immediately recoiled and crouched meekly in her bedroom closet. “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “You did what you had to do.” She knelt down to rub the pit bull’s bony undercarriage. Its stomach growled into her hand as if excited by her wedding ring. “We both did,” she said.