Every year, late February arrives like a respite, an occurrence as predictable to Bainbridge Islanders as rain on the Fourth of July, a string of sunny days to rouse the farm from its sodden winter funk: blue skies and the promise of spring, the tall grass shaking off its frost, the mossy ground softening underfoot, the bare fruit trees beginning to bud, the daffodils, and the crocuses, and the cyclamen just pushing up through the soil, the hellebores and early poppies beginning to blossom.
It is upon such a day that Abe coaxes old Megs down the ramp to the Subaru. She lumbers half-blindly across the driveway, where Abe lifts her into the back seat and settles her onto the old beach towel so familiar to her.
Next, Abe helps lower Ruth into the back seat, where she buckles in beside Megs.
“You got enough room back there?”
She nods solemnly in lieu of a reply.
Abe circles around to the driver’s seat and climbs in, his heart in his throat as he proceeds slower than usual up the puddled driveway.
“Is she comfortable?” says Abe, eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I think so,” says Ruth from the back.
“How about you?”
“Keep your eyes on the road,” she says.
It seems almost a crime to say goodbye on such an achingly beautiful day. How deep the blue sky, what a gift the sun’s golden magnificence. All around, the world stirs with beginnings, swells with the promise of life, as the mild breeze whispers of burgeoning possibilities. What a glorious world to leave behind.
At the signal on Day Road, Abe reaches back to stroke Megs’s head.
“How’s she doing back there?” he says, eyes once more in the rearview mirror.
“Resting,” says Ruth.
Ruth has begun to sob quietly. And again, the grief wells in Abe’s throat as the light turns to green.
Abe checks in at the Day Road Animal Hospital, while Ruth waits in the car with Megs. Five minutes later, he returns, hefting Megs out of the back seat and setting her on her feet in the muddy parking lot, where she stands stoically, head slightly down, tail between her legs.
“You wanna come in?” Abe says to Ruth.
“Of course,” she says.
“Let me get the walker out of the trunk,” he says.
“I don’t need the walker,” says Ruth.
Abe assists Ruth out of the back seat, and she steadies herself on his shoulder as they cross the squelchy lot at a tortoise’s pace, Megs trailing lethargically at their heels. In the lobby, they proceed straight past the desk into the examination room, where Dr. Garman, to whom Abe and Ruth still refer as “the new vet,” though he’s been there for seven years, who has treated Megs for everything from fleas to hypothyroidism to benign tumors, is already awaiting them.
The paper crinkles as Abe hefts Megs onto the table, her breathing labored, her brown eyes at once dull and imploring. She seems neither anxious nor frightened but indifferent, and, Abe would like to think, resigned to her fate. But he’s not resigned himself. Of all the dogs on the farm across the decades, Petey, and Rowdy, and Daisy, and Duke, Megs was perhaps the most companionable, the most easygoing, the steadiest presence in their lives.
Dr. Garman is a portrait of patience and understanding. It occurs to Abe that the man must do this daily. Indeed, his bearing is practiced, his voice modulated to soothing effect, his manner appropriately subdued. He’s a pro. In another life, he might have done well selling insurance.
“I thought I’d give the three of you a moment, if you’d like,” he says.
“Yes,” says Ruth. “Please.”
And as soon as Dr. Garman leaves the room, Ruth is sobbing again, and Abe’s eyes, too, begin to burn as he strokes Megs’s head. The old Lab sighs deeply in response.
“That’s a good girl,” says Abe. “That’s a sweet, sweet, good girl.”
The room is a blur of tears when Dr. Garman returns.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” says Ruth, choking back a sob.
And without further ceremony they proceed with the awful task.
After what amounts to a long, full life, the fall of darkness seems mercifully, ambiguously brief. Abe and Ruth lavish Megs with their touch as her breathing slows, Ruth stroking her rump, Abe scratching her gently behind the ears, until the light fades altogether. They linger for a moment with Megs’s lifeless form, Abe still scratching behind the ears.
“Such a sweet girl,” he says.
“Her suffering is over now,” says Ruth.
They leave the facility heavy of heart. The walk across the parking lot to the car is endless. The tattered old towel is still in back when Abe helps Ruth into the passenger seat.
“They’ll call us about the ashes?” she says.
“Yes,” says Abe.
They drive home in silence, the sun’s golden magnificence flooding the interior of the Subaru, even as their lives are forever diminished. They pull up in front of the house, where Megs’s bed is still on the porch.
When Abe opens the passenger door, he offers Ruth an elbow, leading her deliberately up the ramp without the walker to the front porch, her limp still perceptible. Abe lowers first Ruth, then himself, into the sturdy rockers, their white paint chipped and peeled, their runners worn smooth. Between them, Megs’s ragged bed sits empty.
“What about the bed?” Abe says. “I suppose I should—”
“Leave it for a while,” she says. “It’s not hurting anything.”
“I suppose not,” he says. And then, after a pause: “Cup of decaf?”
“I’m good, thanks,” she says, reaching over to set her hand upon his. “I just want to sit.”
“Me too,” he says.
And so, Ruth and Abe sit, as they’ve sat ten thousand times before, side by side in silence, gazing out across the farm, past the flower beds, and the vegetable garden, and the pasture, still wet with dew. Past the greenhouse and the barn, beyond the orchard and the pond. Past the edges of the land they’ve lived on for so long, through the stands of venerable cedar and fir, and into eternity.