Page 24 of Here We Go Again

When Joe saw the black fur ball with the floppy ears and giant paws, he said the dog reminded him of Argos fromThe Odyssey: Odysseus’s loyal dog, who remembers him even after his twenty-year journey away from home, and then promptly dies upon his return. Logan insisted he couldn’t name the rescue after a dog who is most famous for dying. So he named the dog Odysseus instead.

The animal shelter promised Odie would be forty pounds, at most. He’s now ninety pounds of pure muscle. He has the body of a jaguar and the face of a baby otter.

“Why wouldn’t he be here?” Joe asks Hale. “He’s my dog. He’s coming with us.”

Hale turns a cute shade of purple. “And it didn’t occur to you to mention him at any point over the course of the past week of planning for this trip?”

Joe frowns at her. “I figured you knew he was coming. Rosie, dear, did you think I was going to give away my dog on Facebook Marketplace like I did my reclining chair? And he’s technically a service dog.”

“Technically, he’s not,” Logan corrects, letting Odysseus lick her eyeballs. “He failed his final exam.”

“Standardized testing is bullshit,” Joe says. “And it’s not Odysseus’s fault that he ate all those Costco hotdogs.”

Hale taps the toe of her heels against the sidewalk. “You want to travel across the country with a fraudulent service dog?”

“Not fraudulent. More… unlicensed.”

“That makes him a fake service dog.”

“But he’s of service tome.” Joe clutches his chest. “My dog is not a negotiable part of your two-hundred-page itinerary.”

The dog whimpers at Hale like heknowsshe’s trying to leave him behind. She switches topics. “And this record player really isn’t practical for a road trip.”

“Says the woman who packed a wireless printer.” Logan hoists the outdated technology into the back of the van. Then she discovers the giant bag of dog food hiding behind Joe’s wheelchair and lifts that, too.

“I want to die in Maine,” Joe ruminates wistfully, “staring at the ocean, listening to my Van Morrison records with my favorite blanket and my dog curled up at my feet.”

Hale begins massaging her temples. “Please tell me you also packed useful things, like clothes and diapers and your medications?”

Joe makes a scandalized face. “Please do not discuss my diapers in mixed company, Rosemary.”

“He has all that stuff,” the nurse says as she hands Hale a large black medical bag. “We got permission from his doctor to get refills of all his prescriptions to last three months, and we packed extra diapers, extra—”

It’s clear from Joe’s souring expression that he doesn’t want to sit here thinking about all the various accouterments needed to keep him alive. He packed his dog; he packed his records. He is ready to get in a car and drive.

Logan thinks about yesterday when she stayed late at Evergreen Pines watchingFamily Feudwith Joe. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she’d asked him, as a woman screamedWe’re gonna play, Steve!on the TV. “You can still change your mind and stay here. Evergreen Pines can make you extremely comfortable for this last part.”

And he looked her dead in the eye with a grimace of pain twisting his mouth. “I spent my whole life choosing comfort. In my death, I want to choose something else.”

“Enough chitchat,” Logan blurts now, interrupting the nurse and her unending list of death supplies. “Are you ready to Thelma and Louise this shit?”

Joe beams at her. “Does that make me a Mexican Brad Pitt?”

“There are some sexual connotations there that I’m quite uncomfortable with, but if you want to be Brad Pitt, you can be Brad Pitt. It’s your death trip.”

“It’s not a death trip!” Hale stamps her little foot.

“Chill, Thelma.” Logan picks up the vinyls and the books and loads them into the back of the van. “Or I’ll drive us off a cliff just to spite you.”

ROSEMARY

“The speed limit is seventy.”

“I am aware.”

“You’re going fifty-five, though.”

Rosemary arches her back. “I’m being safe.”