Festival

My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock.

From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and others too loose, before finding the perfect one. We watched him smear sunscreen on his face and neck and ears.

“Don’t forget your ears,” he said.

“I won’t forget them.”

“And don’t wear a gray shirt. You’re always copying me.”

I had already planned my outfit and had every intention of wearing a gray shirt. I thought of the other shirts I might wear, shuffling through them in my head.

When the door closed, I got out of bed to watch as he set off with the dog. The dog didn’t want to go without me. She was my dog from before. She sat in the driveway and looked back at the house. He tried to get her to run, thinking the farther he could get her from the house, the less she’d think about me. She ran for a few seconds and stopped to look back a second time, to the last place she’d seen me. I could have watched this show for hours. I worked from home and the dog and I were together nearly all the time, so I rarely got to see her love for me on display. Her usual state consisted of deep sighs, or nails skittering across the hardwood as she tried to escape my attempts to pick her up, flip her onto her back, and rock her like a baby.

I ate a granola bar, took my vitamins. I unloaded the dishwasher and put some clothes in the dryer, turned on the radio. But pretty soon my husband started texting me things to bring—his hat, cash from the cash drawer—so I tied my shoes and set out. I was on the phone with my mother when I stopped to chat with some neighbors who’d found a snake in their yard. They showed me pictures of the snake, were super excited about this snake, so I did my best