Ginger in Key West

By Chris Cade | Christmas Short Stories on Oct 29, 2008 in Inspirational Christmas Stories

The large glass coffee table top rests over a massive acrylic base. I run my fingers over the glass; it feels cool and smooth. On the table sits a head of Hercules made of weighty blue stone. A mass of carved blue curls covers his head. Round sightless eyes watch the room. A glass figure of a woman kneels beside him. She is pliant, graceful, fluid.

I lean back against the shell-colored leather couch and feel beloved of life in Key West.

Suddenly there is a crash. The house rumbles and rocks, and seems to sink further into the ground. Is it the dreaded hurricane, the fifth one this season? I couldn’t bear another one. I have had to evacuate Key West too many times this year, and decided to sit this one out. All my neighbors are snow birds and have gone north for the summer. There is no one to ask. I am old and I am alone, without even a dog to comfort me. If I were struck by lightening, or hit by a flying bolt crashing through the glass window, I could lie there for days and no one would be there to rescue me. I want to get up and do something but have no idea what. I pick up the phone to call the police, but the phone is dead.

I look out the window and the street is empty. Even the traffic light on the corner has gone dead.

I wait. Five minutes.Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The house is calm now. It evidently wasn’t a hurricane. Whatever has happened apparently is over. I lucked out this time. What was was, I think.  Whatever will be will be.

I sink down again into the shell-colored couch and idly look at another piece on the table. It is a smooth white stone I found on Fort Taylor beach in Key West and saved because I thought it was shaped like the head of my old dog, Ginger. I had colored in a few lines with a black marker, a black ear draping one side of her face, a round black nose, two piercing dark eyes. The resemblance to Ginger is uncanny.

I pick it up. The stone is cold, so cold. The black ears droop. She looks sad, so sad I could weep. I do.

It happened the week of Christmas, the week my husband died. We still lived in New York. Christmas was not much of a holiday that year. My children and I had spent the last month and a half in the hospital visiting him, and we didn’t feel very festive. No one was up to getting a Christmas tree, let alone decorating it, or buying our usual splendid assortment of presents.

Ginger was a large old dog who was almost twenty by then. She once had been a pretty little terrier, but age had made her hideous. She was full of tumors which distorted her legs and neck and made her look grotesquely ugly. My daughter’s boyfriend called the dog “Tumor.” She also had glaucoma in one eye and it was all red and puffy.

My children were all grown up and on their own. I was living in a large apartment house in Manhattan. After their father’s funeral, the children and I had a family conference around the dining room table to decide what to do with Ginger. They felt it was too hard for me to take care of a sick old dog, particularly in my new widowhood. Nor were any of them in a position to take her on. None of us thought she had long to live. We took a vote and decided to have her put to sleep. The vote was unanimous.

My son Zane volunteered to take her to the ASPCA to have her destroyed. He put on her faded leather collar and tried to attach the chain leash. With more strength than she had displayed for months, the dog yanked away. But Zane soon recaptured her and connected the leash. Then he pulled her to the elevator. Ginger balked every inch of the way. I swear she knew where she was going and would have none of it. Sick, old, and deformed as she was, this dog loved life and refused to leave it.

A few minutes later, I looked out of the eleventh story window down to the cold February street. There I saw Zane dragging the dog down the sidewalk. All four of her legs were turned out flat on the ground, and her belly rubbed against the cold concrete, as he lugged her the length of the pavement. I stood there watching until they turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

Years later, I am filled with shame and guilt that I allowed her to die in this ghastly manner. I felt even worse when a friend described how her dog was put away. She held him on her lap, gave him a cookie, and hugged him while he was given a shot. Then she remained with him until he slipped into his final sleep.

Ginger loved me above all others. Once when I arrived in Key West the family brought her to the airport to pick me up. Ginger threw herself into a frenzy of joy. Higher and higher she leaped until she hit the roof of the car. She was a gentle, forgiving creature, always loving me, never holding it against me that I had deserted her for my vacation. I am a loyal person. In my lifetime I’ve had one husband and one dog; I will never have another.

“Forgive me, Ginger,” I said softly. “I’m sorry I betrayed you. You were a good friend, and you deserved better. If I had it to do over again, I would behave very differently.”

I pick up the figure again and hold it to me. The stone grows warm on my breast.

Suddenly, I move it away from me and looked at it closely. Am I imagining it, or is there a tiny smile beneath the painted black nose?

© Copyright 2005, Alma Bond