dear ivan pavlov,

by Erica Anderson

Dear Ivan Pavlov,

My husband and I decided to try a new, hip brunch spot. We ordered the house special, and a couple of mimosas later, I was boozed up and ready to go home.

We pulled out of the lot, and my chicken and waffles immediately tried to escape. The warning was brief. Since this wasn’t my husband’s first rodeo with my explosive colon outbursts, he pulled over without hesitation.

The problem was where we were.

This wasn’t a random roadside ditch. This was prime property being prepped for high end restaurants and luxury high rise condos, and it became my toilet. My bare cheeks faced a brand new, members only club.

That little sh*t stop patch of land is permanently burned into my brain. Like Pavlov’s dogs, the sight alone makes my body remember unloading brunch onto very expensive dirt.

Even better, I can still see my dirty little secret while standing on the terrace of that fancy club.

I have other conditioned responses.

Some make me laugh.

Some make me cry.

A highway that looks like every other highway has conditioned me.

During the first weeks Andie was on hospice, I convinced myself she would pull through. I would speed down that highway, bracing for the worst, only to arrive and find her in makeup, sitting on the patio with her son.

Sometimes she was reworking her résumé, asking my opinion about taking a job with less travel. I don’t remember my answer. I only remember being confused and heartbroken at the same time.

Once, I drove there certain it was her last day. We arrived to a house full of family and watched Andie sit in her husband’s lap, facing the sunset. It felt too intimate to witness, something both beautiful and unbearable. I stood inside, away from the moment.

It wasn’t her last day.

It was the last sunset.

I remember lying beside her while she caressed my face and said, “It will be okay.”

One afternoon, her dog Stella was sick, vomiting and pooping all over the couch and walls. She died a few days before Andie. I texted Andie’s son and asked if she was coherent enough to know Stella had passed.

He said yes.

That night, I agonized over whether to mention the passing of her dog or pretend nothing had happened.

I chose silence.

Another day, my hands were shaking and I spilled some of her morphine on the counter. She told me not to worry, she had more. Then she worried it might have gotten on my purse.

I was furious that she still cared about my purse.

I was furious at everything.

Late one evening, I was driving too fast because she wanted me to see the vision board she had made. She sent me a photo and asked me to guess which magazine cutout represented her and which one was me.

Everything she was meant to live for was on that board.

After her celebration of life, there was a gathering at her house. I stood alone in her office, staring at it. I asked her husband if I could keep it.

I hid it in my closet because I cannot look at it yet.

I broke.

Then the pieces shattered.

Now every restaurant, every billboard along that route triggers the same response.

Dear Ivan Pavlov,

I want you to recondition my brain so I don’t relive the horror of losing my best friend to ovarian cancer every time I drive that road.

Photo of Erica Anderson

BIO: Erica Anderson (born Erica Bateni) is an Iranian American writer based in Texas. She taught public school for nineteen years. Her work explores racism, grief, addiction, and survival without resolution. She is seeking representation for her memoir in essays, The Poor Camel’s Ashes.