Where We Belong (37 page)

I didn’t ask. Because there was no good answer. If we couldn’t do it, the two of us, I couldn’t do it alone.

“I have a theory about Sophie,” I said. “The way she’s acting.”

“Will I like it?”

“No.”

First I thought he really didn’t want to hear it. And never would. Then he tugged at my sleeve and flipped his head toward the kitchen.

Before I left Rigby, I said the same thing I’d said to her every day for the past three months. But not out loud. I never said it out loud. And yet I trusted the message to get delivered all the same. I said, silently, If I don’t see you again, Rigby, I love you and goodbye, and thanks for everything.

I picked up my coffee and joined Paul in the kitchen. At first, we just sat.

“I think the pain medication isn’t working anymore,” I said.

“It’s nearly enough drugs to kill her. I can’t believe it wouldn’t kill her pain.”

“I think the pain’s breaking through.”

“I thought this was a theory about Sophie.”

“It is.”

I could tell he didn’t get how, but he didn’t ask. Probably because he didn’t want to know.

“Sophie imitates the inside of Rigby. Which has mostly been calm. And when Rigby was all excited to see you, Sophie imitated that.”

“So you’re saying she’s fussing because Rigby is in pain.”

“It’s possible.”

“You know if I can’t keep her relatively pain free, I’ll have to take her to the vet and decide this.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought I should tell you.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I guess. How sure are you? Maybe she’s fussing because she knows she’s going to lose Rigby soon. Maybe she can sense that.”

“Maybe.”

“But you think it’s the pain.”

“You heard her when we were walking Rigby to the door. Every step. Every time Rigby put her weight down. And when Rigby hit the bed, she shrieked. Rigby didn’t make a sound, but Sophie shrieked.”

He closed his eyes. At first, he didn’t look like he was breathing at all. Then he sighed. Long and strangely slow. The silence was starting to scare me.

He got up and walked back into the bedroom. I didn’t follow. I’d grown roots, and they were tangled up with the chair legs.

He came back out again in about an hour. Or two or three minutes. It was hard to tell.

“I’m not even sure how I’d get her to the vet. We’d need another person or two just for that.”

“Or maybe the vet would come here.”

“Maybe.”

We finished our coffee in silence. And it was so heavy, that silence. It was so heavy, it felt like the heaviness of it was sitting in my stomach, pulling it down. Like it might tear right through the bottom of my stomach and keep going.

“It’s a hard decision to make,” he said. “If she still wants to be here, I don’t want to cut her short. If she’s in pain, I don’t want to prolong it. I don’t know what to do. What should I do, Angie?”

I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.

I tried to answer. I tried to at least say I didn’t know. But the words were too huge. They got stuck coming out.

After a few minutes, I said, “I think you should call Rachel.”

“And tell her what?”

“Ask her to come up.”

“For what?”

“For support. You were there for her when she was losing Dan.”

“She didn’t ask me to be, though. She said I should stay up here and enjoy my retirement.”

“That was when he was going in for surgery. Not when she found out he was going to die. She wouldn’t have wanted to go through that alone. Would she?”

“Maybe. She wanted to be alone the minute he died.”

“Do you want to be alone? Or do you want her here with you?”

A couple of breaths, both of which I could hear. Then he said, “It would be nice to have her here. But… that’s… I don’t know how to say what it is. To tell her that out of all the people I’ve ever had in my life, she’s the one person I want with me at a time like this it says an awful lot. It almost tells her all there is to tell.”

“Paul. It’s been a year and a half. Don’t you think it’s time?”

He shook his head. Almost violently.

“It’s too much. I can’t do it now. It’s too much all at once.”

“Fine. Then ask her to come up because you need another pair of hands to get Rigby to the vet.”

He said nothing. For a bizarre length of time. Like he hadn’t heard, or had no opinion on what I said.

Then he jumped up suddenly. “That’s good,” he said.

Which made me proud I’d thought of it.

He called Rachel, who agreed to come up the following day.

When I woke up the next morning, my very first thought was that I might not be able to be with Rigby on her last days. Because maybe when Rachel got here, Paul would want me to make myself scarce. And Sophie. I hadn’t even asked if Sophie could be there. And yet, after all this time, I wasn’t sure how anyone could get her to be anywhere else.

It felt bad. Really bad. I could feel it in my chest, and I remember thinking I knew why they call it getting your heart broken. That was exactly how it felt.

But then I thought, If I had it to do over again, would I do the same?

I would have. I knew I would have. Because she was Paul’s dog, so Paul was more important.

So I just got up and faced the day and got ready to find out.

What else was I supposed to do?

The back door was unlocked, which usually meant Paul was up. But when I went in, I couldn’t hear him, and he didn’t seem to be around. I stuck my head into the bedroom to check on Sophie and Rig. Paul blinked back at me from the bed. He was awake, but not up.

“I was up till three,” he said. “But it’s okay. You can come in and check on them.”

Rigby was fast asleep on her side. She didn’t wake up and thump at me. Sophie was lying on her back, not touching the dog in any way. Staring off into space. Smiling.

“Sophie is smiling,” I said.

“That’s odd,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Sophie smiling. What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think it means Rigby’s not in pain this morning?”

That’s when it hit me. And I think it may have hit him at the same time. Because he got over to us fast.

I watched him put his hand on Rigby’s chest. Then on the side of her neck.

“She’s not in pain,” he said.

He covered her up with the quilt. All of her. Even her beautiful black and gray head.

We sat in the kitchen and waited for Rachel to get there. We didn’t talk much while we were waiting.

Except I remember at one point, I said, “She saved you from the decision. Because she knew it would be hard for you. That was nice of her.”

“That’s the kind of dog she was.”

“Want me to shovel the driveway, so Rachel can get in?”

“Good idea,” he said. “Thanks.”

Then at least I had something to do.

“We never had any breakfast,” he said. “Do you want lunch?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

We sat awhile longer.

Then I said, “When Rachel gets here, should we leave? And if so, leave how? Leave the house and stay in the apartment? Or leave completely?”

In the last year and a half, I’d told him maybe ten times that he should invite Rachel up for a visit. He finally invited her, once. And she came. She stayed four days. My mom and Sophie and I went camping. At the same place we camped before. But in Paul’s tent, and in nice weather. We’d arranged it all in advance, so he’d be able to talk to Rachel.

He didn’t talk to her. Not about the big stuff, anyway.

He never really explained why not, and it never felt right to ask.

“Is it okay if I don’t really know yet?” he said, finally.

“Sure.”

“It would be nice if you could get ready to take off if Sophie gets noisy. But… I don’t know. If she’s like this… I don’t know if it matters.”

“You don’t have to figure it out now.”

“Good. Because I can’t really think.”

“Is that her?” I asked, because I thought I heard a car in the driveway.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

But he didn’t move.

“You going to get up and go meet her?”

“I don’t know,” he said. And continued to sit. “It’s not looking that way.”

“Okay. I’ll go.”

I ran, carefully, down the back steps and opened the garage door, so she could pull her car in next to Paul’s. And when she took her two suitcases out of the trunk, I took one. To be helpful.

“Thank you, Angie,” she said. “Where’s Paul?”

She looked so young. Not younger than usual or anything. It just hit me again, the way it did both other times I’d seen her. Except the first time I saw her, I hadn’t known she was a little older than Paul. It was hard to believe she was in her late sixties. I couldn’t see that when I looked at her. She looked like an actress who’s about fifty now, but still looks like an actress and still looks good.

“He’s in the kitchen,” I said.

I set the suitcase down and closed the garage door behind us. And we walked toward the back stairs together. Side by side. Careful not to slip.

“Rigby died in her sleep last night,” I said.

“Oh, dear. Is Paul all right?”

“I don’t know. He isn’t crying.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

“I never meant it was. He seems kind of frozen.”

Then I let her go up the stairs ahead of me, because it was only wide enough for two people if they weren’t both carrying suitcases. When we met up on the back landing, I said, “Can I ask you a favor?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“It’s not for me. It’s for Paul.”

“Then definitely yes.”

“If he acts like it’s okay for you to go soon, because he doesn’t need help lifting the dog, could you please not believe him?”

She looked into my face for what felt like a long time, and it made me squirmy. But I held still. I watched the way her frozen clouds of breath and my frozen clouds of breath came together into one big cloud. Then she put her hand on my cheek. Kind of cupped it in her palm. And I thought, This is how a mother should touch you. Like the touch is really for you, not for her. But I figured it was too late for my mother to learn.

“I’ll stay a few days,” she said. “Until we’re sure he’s doing all right.”

“Thank you.”

Then I opened the back door and let her in and closed it after us. We walked through the back bedroom together. It still had a twin bed in it that Paul had gotten for her first visit.