“Better?” I asked, nuzzling her neck. “Let me know if you want me to move.”
“Oh, Noah.” She turned her head toward me and smiled. “I will always want you with me, no matter what. This is my favorite place. This is what I’ve been missing.”
16
SOPHIE
Years ago,we had a dog my brother and I named Max. I could still remember the day we went to pick him up in the middle of rainy May, when the skies threatened to fall on us and when the thunders were the only things decorating the dome above us.
He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A small, black body with patches of brown over his paws and his snout, and two brown circles above his eyes, and a tail that wiggled as soon as he spotted Andy and me. When our dad told us that we were finally going to get a puppy—a Rottweiler puppy—I spent days and nights trying to find out everything I could about their breed.
But nothing could ever prepare me for the amount of love I felt from that first moment I saw him.
While his brothers and sisters kept running around, hiding behind their mother, Max came all the way to the fence, wanting to play with us. I knew he was it. I knew he was supposed to come home with us.
He fell asleep in my lap while we drove back home. From that moment on, he and I were inseparable. I would wake up in the morning with him lying at the foot of my bed, waiting to start the day.
I would come back from school, and he would be there, waiting for me on the front porch, happiness radiating from his body.
But one morning… One morning Max couldn’t get up to play with me. He couldn’t even get out of my room, and that was when I knew. Even though my parents downplayed it after they took him to the vet. Even though Andy said that he just caught a small bug and would recover, I knew.
Three days later, I woke up and ran downstairs, wanting to hug him good morning, but he wasn’t at his usual spot. Mom wouldn’t meet my eyes, and Dad was already gone. They told me that they took him for a checkup since he seemed to be feeling better, but even in the mind of an eight-year-old, something sinister was whispering that it was the end.
That day, Max wasn’t waiting for me on the front porch. His warm and friendly eyes weren’t shining when he saw me, and when I saw the grim faces of my parents, the dam broke.
“I’m sorry, darling,” my dad whispered then, kissing my head, while the tears streamed down my cheeks and sobs racked my body.
“He’s not in pain anymore, bubba. He’s in Heaven now.” My mom tried to soothe my wounds, holding my hands.
“But I just wanted him to stay with me. I wanted him to stay forever, Mom.” I cried and cried and cried, but none of my tears could bring back my loyal friend.
“Death is part of life, my love. We are born, we live, and we die. Isn’t it wonderful that we get to go through this wonderful thing called life, even if it’s just for a moment, huh? He’s gone, but he will forever be remembered. He will forever live here.” She pressed her hand against my heart. “He will always be with us.”
I didn’t get it then. How could I when all I wanted, all I needed, was for him to come back?
But I got it now. I understood what my mom wanted to tell me. I understood because the death I hated so much for him was now coming for me.
Death haunted me since I was just a child, and now it had finally caught up with me.
“No, no.” My mom shook her head, waking me up from the memory. She stared at Doctor Mathias with tears in her eyes. “Isn’t there anything that we can do? Something—” Her voice broke.
“I really am sorry, but the area where the cancer is located is too risky.”
“Please,” she begged. “There must be something.”
I turned my head to the side and looked at the old grandfather clock while the sobs from my mom filled the room.
“There’s nothing, truly.”
“She’s only eighteen!” my mom suddenly roared. “Only eighteen years old. Oh God.”
“Davina.” Dad’s voice tore through the misery, holding the edge of hollowness. “It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not going to be okay. None of this is okay.”
The clock ticked and ticked and ticked, taking seconds and minutes away from me. Slowly, painfully, the future I planned was becoming blurry and every tick, tick, tick from the clock was just a reminder of it.
A hand gripped my own, and I knew it was my mom holding me. She wanted to comfort me, I knew that, but the ugly and sad truth was that she was trying to keep me next to her.
