I hadn’t seen Cam or Cecil’s ghosts for years now. I’d like to think they were still here, watching over us all, but that they’d just run out of important things to say. Things we needed to hear.
Lise still flipped through the old photo album on days when she was alone in the house, which wasn’t often, given how full the place was. She’d always pause on that picture of young Cam in his fancy cowboy hat, showing his prize steer, and say how much Hunter looked like him. Her wedding picture with Cam and another with the two of them and Hunter as a four-year old hung in the hallway at the very end, near the children’s rooms. There was also one of Brad and his first wife — she’d died of pneumonia a few years before he met Lise. When the addition was done and she was debating which pictures to put up, Brad had insisted she include some of Cam. He and Lise were engaged by then, but he told her it was important to remember the people we once loved. Not to lament that they were gone, but to carry forward with all the wonderful ways their love affected us.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Brad and Lise had their own child now. Emily was a precocious second-grader at Faderville Elementary. Like her big brother Hunter, she loved learning about animals. There was barely room on her bed for her to sleep, what with all the stuffed animals piled around her. How she emulated her big brother, followed him around during chores before he left for college. Every other day, she asked either Lise or Bernadette when he was coming home.
He was home now. Summer break. He spent most days riding around in a pickup truck with old Doc Samuels, doing farm calls, because he was going to be a veterinarian when he finished school, maybe even take over Doc Samuels’ practice someday.
Today, though, Hunter had taken off from work. He was lying on the kitchen floor, squeezing my paw lightly every time I winced. His touch helped. At least until the next knife of pain stabbed deep in my belly, twisting my insides, turning them inside out. Every time that happened, my vision went all blurry. Shapes blended, went dark. Sounds came to me muffled, as if I were listening underwater.
We’d just celebrated my fifteenth birthday a few days ago. They took my picture. Sang to me. Then Bernadette served me a plate of bacon bits and scrambled eggs. Swallowing was difficult. I gagged halfway through, unable to keep them down.
It had gotten harder and harder to hang on. Not so much like I was being pushed toward death, but more like I was being pulled toward some other place. A better place. Although I found it hard to believe there was anything better than the life I’d lived. That may seem an odd thing to say, considering all I’d been through. But it was Ned Hanson’s cruelty that made me appreciate Cecil’s kindness even more. And Tucker Kratz’s selfishness only served to highlight Bernadette’s caring nature and the love of Lise and her family.
If only Ned and Tucker understood how powerful love like that was ...
Hunter ran his hand down my foreleg. Spoke to me. The words sounded tinny, faraway. Something about sheep and playing ball, maybe.
He’d grown so tall, so strong. He was still quiet. Not in a shy way, but thoughtful, soft-spoken, contemplative. Animals were so easily calmed by his presence. He only had to glance at them, extend his hand and murmur a few words, and they were won over.
Lise still fretted about him, though. And for good reason. Twice since they’d come back to Faderville to live, he’d collapsed and been taken to the hospital. Last year, his heart had stopped completely. They revived him at the hospital and when he came home following his surgery, there was something different about him. Something very ... tranquil.
You’d think dying like that would have made him afraid that it would happen again, but if anything he seemed less so.
“I’ve seen it, Halo,” he had told me. “The Other Side.” His eyes lit up, as if he were dreaming of visiting a faraway galaxy. At the time, we were sitting alone together on a hill overlooking the small flock of sheep that Lise kept. He plucked a yellow-faced dandelion from beside him and twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Dad was there. Grandpa Ray, too.”
Lying back in the grass, he squinted into the sunlight. “They told me to go back.”
And that was all he ever said about it.
—o00o—
The family was gathered in Hunter’s bedroom, watching over me. I’d slept here ever since the new addition was completed, even when Hunter was away at school. In fact, I’d been allowed in any room I wanted to go in, but when it was time to go to sleep, I always chose this one. Because my place was beside Hunter. And when he wasn’t here, I was waiting for him.
Brad stood just outside the doorway, rubbing Lise’s shoulders. Cammie and Emily sat on the edge of the bed, holding each other tight, tears streaming down their cheeks. Tinker, no longer a kitten, was curled up in Emily’s lap, looking unconcerned and all-important, as cats always do.
Behind them, Bernadette gripped the handles of her walker. “Poor girl. She must be in so much pain. I can’t imagine ... Well, I can, in a way.”
“Honey.” Lise came to Hunter, knelt beside him. “The meds don’t seem to be working anymore. Do you want me to call Doc Samuels?”
For a while, he acted like he didn’t hear her. He just kept on stroking my paw, his eyes on my face. Finally, “I don’t think you need to.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Brad. He shook his head, then motioned her out of the room.
“Come on, girls.” Lise rose, held her arms out. “Let’s leave them alone.”
Bernadette hobbled out of the room behind them. Just as they got to the door, Cammie turned around and rushed back to me.
As she scooched down to kiss me, a single tear dripped onto my nose and slid down my muzzle. Her whispered breath tickled my whiskers. “Say ‘hi’ to my daddy when you see him. Tell him I love him, even though I never got to meet him.”
I will. Soon.
She disappeared as a thickening fog swirled around her.
My breathing grew fainter. The whiteness of the fog grew brighter. Like sunlight glinting off snow.
I could barely keep my eyes open. I saw Hunter’s arms reach out, curve around me. By the way the room moved around us, I knew he was lifting me up, even though I couldn’t feel it.
I couldn’t even feel the pain anymore.
But I felt the warmth flowing from his chest and arms through my body, like a tide washing over me, filling me.
The pictures in the hallway bounced past. The back door swung open. High, cottony clouds streaked across a glass-blue sky, dotted with a flock of grackles, their iridescent blues and greens flashing in the midday sun.
He laid me in the shade of a catalpa tree. From high up in the branches, I heard the faint chatter of squirrels. I had stopped stalking them years ago, although they had never stopped mocking me. I no longer cared. That was the glory of growing old. Small things that used to drive you crazy just didn’t matter anymore.
Only love mattered.
Hunter sat beside me, pulled me gently to him, and lifted my head into his lap, so I could see the hills, green as the greenest green that ever was, one last time before I closed my eyes again.
And there on the hills, the sheep were all scattered about. Eating, as always.