Lia Anderson stood in the entry corral of the Mount Airy Dog Park, staring into gloom unrelieved by the sun rising behind a solid wall of cloud cover. The park, a repurposed picnic area surrounded by more than a thousand acres of urban forest, was empty.
The leash looping her wrist tugged. Her silver schnauzer hated to wait. Chewy was a simple dog, always living in the present. Beyond the gate, there were smells to smell, squirrels to chase, trees to mark.
She couldn’t go in, not yet.
The white metal canister she held weighed less than two pounds. There was something wrong about this container—one that held fourteen years of love, loyalty, and adventures; the sum total of a dog’s life, a very good dog’s life—something so wrong about it weighing so little. Worse for the container of that life to be bland and sterile, suitable for a stash of cheap ribbon candy, the kind that hangs around forever until it forms an ugly mass as hard as concrete.
Honey had been her center for all of her adult life: the one she counted on, her one constant through college, starting her own business, through disastrous boyfriends and the terrifying beginning of her relationship with Peter. Her heart, her rock, a better mother than her own had been, now reduced to ashes. She wondered if there would ever be anything big enough to fill the hole.
She couldn’t bear putting Honey in one of the schmaltzy urns available at the crematorium, so she hadn’t bought one. Bailey suggested painting the can. But her talent was for design, not emotion: pleasant arrangements of shapes and colors that some found evocative but were never intended as such. Painting the depth of her feelings for Honey was beyond her. She was left with this blank white can that showed nothing and contained everything.
Chewy tugged again.
“You don’t linger in the past, do you, little man?”
He barked, leaning against the leash.
Honey’s death had been almost without warning. Her healthy, happy dog stopped eating. A visit to the vet and a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer—so common in golden retrievers—days before that one bad day when she looked so miserable, couldn’t be tempted with favorite treats or even hamburger, wouldn’t drink water, wouldn’t get up, wouldn’t move at all. Then a quiet death in her sleep before Lia could decide if this was the day she had to put her down.
A blessing, not having to make that final decision, not having to watch Honey suffer the way some dogs did. But Honey’s passing drove home an important truth: Everyone leaves you. The only one who doesn’t is the one you leave behind when you die.
The sound of a motor in the parking lot below drew her attention to a small, familiar truck with a cab on the back and almost as much rust as Lia’s ancient Volvo 240. The woman and bloodhound who emerged were of a pair, tall and lanky and beaky, with red hair (though Bailey’s retained its glory with chemical assistance), easygoing and difficult to ruffle.
Lia could never decide if Bailey’s defining feature was her hands or her eyes. The hands, nicked and calloused from her gardening business, were an extension of her thoughts, mobile and fluttering and graceful as a pair of pet birds. But her eyes—large, luminous, bulging slightly—looked into you with old-soul compassion, and love that saw you as you were meant to be.
Lia waited for woman and dog to hike up the curving service road to join her. Chewy and Kita sniffed noses. Bailey said nothing, just put a warm arm around Lia’s shoulder. Lia turned, folding into Bailey’s embrace.
When Lia’s hiccuping sobs stopped, Bailey rubbed her back. “You don’t have to do this now.”
Lia kept her cheek pressed into Bailey’s jacket. “She wants to be here, with her friends. Not stuck in this stupid can.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
Lia turned her head from side to side, wiping tears and snot onto Bailey’s jacket. “I need to do this alone.”
“Okay, then. If anyone shows up, I’ll shoo them away. Can I buy you breakfast afterwards?”
“I don’t know if I can eat. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
Bailey opened the gate. Inside the corral, Lia bent down and unclipped Chewy, stuffing his leash in a cargo pocket. She set the canister on top of the trash bin and struggled with the lid. Bailey moved in, pressing strong, scarred thumbs under the rim, pushing just enough to loosen it. “There you go.” She held the inner gate open.
Lia stepped into the park. Chewy bolted, leaving long streaks in the heavily dewed grass. Lia followed behind, dribbling bits of ash and bone as she said goodbye to her dog.