The Empty-Nesters

My sister Lindsey was the first to get out. She left for Denver in August, taking the few things from her life in Columbus that would fit in a Toyota Camry-- all her clothes we had shared, various "What Am I Supposed to Do After College" books, and a school backpack I had "borrowed" and then unsuccessfully hidden when she announced the move. I didn't have time to complain. Within weeks I was headed off to Spain for four months. As for my oldest sister, Meghan, she would be the last to leave, but she would leave. According to a signed lease, she would be about 15 minutes away from my parents' house by the third week in September. Not a drive or a flight away, but a step nonetheless.
Dick and Med were ecstatic. Sure they had a 2,000 square-foot house, about 1,500 square-feet full of their daughters' remains. Meghan's old furniture and appliances. Lindsey's unfinished craft projects, cds, photo albums. My clothes, my books, all my papers. And then there were the animals: two cats from Meghan and one dog from Lindsey. None, I'm proud to say, from myself. That left them plus four animals, including the one pet from our childhood, my half-siamese, half-human Phoebe. But after 27 years of doing the parent thing, they were finally minus three daughters.
Lindsey was the first to call, before I left.
"Have Mom send my beads and all my jewelry stuff."
A month later she rang for her three-year-old bitch.
"My roommates ok'd Parker. Have Meghan bring her in the plane when she comes to visit."
Dick and Med said they were ecstatic.
"Finally, we can sleep without a hairball between us!"


When I came back from Spain on Christmas Eve, I was fifty dollars short for the taxi-ride from South-West Florida International to my parents' condo.
I toyed with the big "hello" in the cab.
"Surprise, I'm home and I need money," seemed like the wrong way to say I'd grown up in the past few months. Fortunately, I soon discovered I was two weeks early and apparently just in time to salvage the first family reunion in half a year. After the initial excitement wore off, I sat poolside with Meghan, Lindsey, and Edna, one of our many fly-south-for-the-winter neighbors.
"You got here just in time," Lindsey said under her breath.
Edna was straining to listen.
"They've just gotten crazier," Meghan added, then changed the subject as Mom walked through the gate.
"I was just telling Josie how she'll get to see Parker when she gets home."
"Oh yea," Mom was using her annoyed pre-school teacher voice. "Did Lindsey tell you how she brought Parker back home finally. Just couldn't stay away." She smiled. "We missed her, though."
"Who, Lindsey?" I asked.


Three weeks after coming back to Columbus, two weeks after moving into my own apartment, and a week after moving out of my now burned apartment, I'm back at home, a seventh-wheel squatter in the house I once occupied. It's early Saturday morning, and because my bedroom is also the cat's, and my bathroom also Parker's, I am awoken through the open doors to the sound of Dad's hurried voice.
"Med, get the brush."
I hear the persistent jingling of a collar, and the water running in our (Parker's and my) bathtub.
"She got into something down by the creek. I think its burs."
After a few minutes of lying in bed listening, I've discovered that yes, Parker has gotten into some burs, and no, they are not coming out of her frizzy mane with shampoo and water. And that my parents are worried, very worried.
"Call PetSmart, or the vet." My dad is barking orders at my mother, who is running through the house in search of a phonebook.
By this point I'm up, so I venture out to witness the damage.
My bathtub is covered in shit, and Parker has shaken her way over to the the living room, where she's rubbing more shit all over the carpet.
Dad is on the telephone, with Mom standing by eagerly.
"Dick, if they don't answer we can call her doctor."
He shushes her.
"Parker Sexton," he tells the teenager on the other end of the line. "That's right, s-e-x, as in sex, and t-o-n, as in 2,000 pounds. She's a miniature pincher, Shnouzer mix, between three and four years old. She usually goes to another store, but we've tried all of them, they're booked, and we'd like to get her in this morning.
He tells the kid they can be there in twenty minutes, and my mom is out the basement door. "I'll bring the car around, Dick."
He yells to me to clean up the shit on the carpet, and slams the front door. As Parker comes waddling over, confused, as her parents left without her, I tell her to stay strong.
"Don't worry, Parker, even though it may seem dire, you're not going to die."
The front door opens again. "Parker!" Mom yells.

They're back in an hour, but I don't hear the collar or her annoying yelp.
"So did you have to put her to sleep in the end?"
Dad doesn't get the joke.
"You know I think they will, she was just so scared, making all kinds of noise while the other dogs were sitting there patiently."
Mom is worried.
"They won't put her to sleep, will they Dick?"
"They said she'd be ready between two and seven. I bet they do, Med, and they want to give her time to wake up before we come."
"Oh God I hope not."
"I'm heading over to the apartment to clean and do homework. Mom, I was thinking you could come and help me there tomorrow?"
She picks a fight over this request as Dad walks over to the living room, probably to pick up more shit off the carpet. So I'm standing in the bathroom, picking up after Parker, wishing I had just rolled in some burs down by the creek, instead of coming back to the real world, having my apartment building catch on fire, my roommate move out, and my financial situation upheaved by all of the above. Maybe then my parents would call the doctor.