When I woke up the next day the first thing I did was check on Mister Mosely. But the porch was empty. Then I saw Mum and Dad down in the backyard. Mum had her dressing gown on. Dad was beside her. Something was wrapped in a sheet on the ground between them.
As soon as I got downstairs Mum came over and hugged me. She told me Mister Mosely had died during the night, only she said he’d ‘passed away’. She said she knew it was sad, but the good thing was, Moe wasn’t in pain any more. She said it was ‘for the best’. I didn’t believe her. I wanted to see Mister Mosely for myself, so Dad pulled back the sheet a bit. It looked like Moe was just asleep. But when I patted him he felt cold and he didn’t move.
I didn’t want to cry, I really didn’t, but my eyes started stinging and something was sticking in my throat. I tried to think about those things Mum said. About how Mister Mosely wasn’t hurting any more and how it was sad but it was for the best. But I kept hoping none of it was true. I kept hoping that Mister Mosely was just trying to fool me like how I tried to fool him all those times when I came home from school and he was waiting for me. I wanted him to lift up his head and open his big eyes and start thumping his tail on the grass a million miles an hour the way he always did.
Then Mum knelt down beside me and her face came right up close to mine. I could see her eyes were wet and she kept telling me how it was ‘all right’ and how Mister Mosely had a good life and how it was okay to feel sad, and I kept nodding and nodding and nodding because I knew it was all true, but mainly because I wanted her to stop saying those kinds of things so I could think about something else and about not crying.
But I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t swallow and when I tried to, it sounded like I was choking and then I was making those noises little kids do when they cry and I tried even harder to stop but it just made it worse. Then Dad said, ‘All right, come on, that’s enough. It’s not the end of the world,’ and he was right too, but Mum looked all angry at him and told him to leave me alone and that I could cry if I wanted to cry and Dad said I wasn’t a baby any more, which I wasn’t either. I really wasn’t.
I didn’t want Mum and Dad to fight. I didn’t want them to get angry with each other the way they did that time with Uncle Gavin when Mister Mosely changed into something scary. So I tried to tell them that I was all right, that I wasn’t a baby, that I knew Moe had to die. But I couldn’t breathe properly and I couldn’t make any words come out, only stupid choking hiccough noises that just got louder and louder until Mum hugged me even tighter and that made it twice as bad and I couldn’t stop myself. Then Dad lost his temper and said, ‘That’s enough! It’s not like one of us has died. It’s just a dog, for god’s sake.’
And that’s when it happened, exactly how I told you about already. That’s when my mum punched my dad. She just sort of stood up and turned round and she was shaking her head and staring at Dad like she didn’t know who he was. Then she hit him on the chest with the back of her fist and said, ‘Don’t you say that!’ And Dad just stared at her like he didn’t know who she was either and Mum started crying and hitting Dad’s chest as if she was trying to beat down a wall or something and saying, ‘Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare say that!’
I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted Mum and Dad to stop looking at each other that way. I wanted Mister Mosely to jump up and stand between them and growl at them and show them his teeth and be big and strong and scary and make it all end. But he didn’t. He didn’t do anything. He just lay there wrapped up in that sheet.
So I did it. I squeezed between Mum and Dad but I couldn’t growl like Mister Moe or be scary like him so I yelled as loud as I could for them to stop and I shouted, ‘I hate you!’ even though that wasn’t really true. But it worked just the same because Mum stopped hitting Dad and they stopped looking at each other and they looked at me instead. Then Mum started to cry like she did that day with the sheet and she just sort of let herself fall forward and her head hit on Dad’s chest.
We stayed like that for a while, Dad just standing there and Mum crying and me stuck between them. And all the time Mister Mosely just lay on the grass all wrapped up and he didn’t move and he didn’t whine and he didn’t wag his tail because it really was true and I knew it.
Mister Mosely was gone.