Page 28 of Taming Georgia

The passenger window of the truck is down despite the frigid temperature outside. Cooper needs to feel the wind on his fur and let his tongue hang in the breeze while I drive. It’s his favorite thing.

Every few minutes, he’ll bring his head inside, shiver, sneeze, and then put it back out. It’s comical, and I love how happy he is. He’s always been so happy, even when he had no reason to be.

I stand outside in the parking lot, watching as the paramedics roll a gurney covered with a white sheet toward the ambulance. Despite the cover, I see her anyway. I’ll never stop seeing her lifeless body with a needle still in her arm. No sheet, coffin, or amount of time will erase my last vision of her from my mind—though I wish they would.

I don’t even know what to feel. Truthfully, I just feel numb. I always knew that this reality was looming somewhere in my future, but despite knowing this would be my fate, one can never be prepared for finding their mom dead.

I’ve been mad at her my whole life. I’ve wanted her to get help for as long as I can remember, but she never would. I’ve never understood why I wasn’t enough to make her want to be sober. I’ve spent so long being sad and angry that I’m just a void. I have nothing to give her death right now.

At least I’m eighteen, and I graduated, so I don’t have to deal with foster parents. I guess that’s one gift she gave me. Happy fucking graduation to me. I should be able to keep the apartment with my current jobs. Not much has changed. I’ll just be coming home to an empty apartment instead of a junkie-filled one.

A movement off to the side of the building catches my eye.

“Good-bye, Mom,” I say to the ambulance as it drives off.

I head over to the side of the building.

I cringe when I see him. He’s young, probably just a year old. He has hundreds of maggots eating away at his wounds.

I hold my stomach, afraid I’m going to hurl.

“Oh my God.” I swallow back the bile that rises in my throat.

I inch closer, holding my hand to my nose because the smell is nauseating. I can see the puncture wounds all over his body.

“Oh, boy. Who did this to you?”

He looks up at me with the sweetest amber eyes, begging me to help. I bend at my knees and extend my hand toward his muzzle. He licks it.

I shake my head.

People did this to him. People put him in a fighting ring and allowed him to be mauled to near death. Then, they left him to suffer and die…and he licks me.

I run up to the apartment. I grab a sheet and the five hundred dollars that I’ve slowly been stashing away over the past two years for a car. I pick up the phone to call a taxi, but of course, the line is dead. Mom used the phone money for drugs.

I dart down the hall and knock on the neighbor’s door. My friend Carrie answers.

“Can you call a taxi for me, please? Our phone’s dead.”

“Sure,” she says. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I just need a taxi.”

“Okay.” She smiles and closes the door.

I head back out to the dog. He’s exactly where I left him.

He doesn’t protest as I wrap him in the sheet. I think he knows that I’m here to help him.

Thankfully, the cab driver lets us get in, and he takes us to the nearest emergency vet office.

The dog has to stay the night at the vet.

I hate going back to the apartment without him. I spend the evening cleaning the apartment and throwing out everything of my mom’s. There’s nothing of value—sentimental or otherwise. All of her junk has a negative memory attached to it, so I get rid of it all. Finally, before crashing in bed, I go out and buy the dog some food for when he comes back.

The next day, I’m able to bring him home. I have fifty dollars leftover from paying the vet bill, so I get takeout from a local steak place.

The dog is still weak but already looks so much better. He no longer has maggots. Some of the wounds needed some stitches, but most just need to heal on their own. The doctor gave me a bag of medicine for the dog and says once he’s finished with his antibiotics, he should be feeling great.

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