Ever by My Side (31 page)

“So far, so good” was as much as he would relinquish with regard to the lack of physical findings, as though there might still be consequences from which he could derive financial remuneration.

What disturbed me most was the unpredictability of Sophie’s behavior and my failings as an owner of my first dog. Not only was I unable to rein her in on a walk, but now she was demonstrating the same kind of aggressive behavior I had witnessed as a kid with our German shepherd, Patch. I had been critical of my father’s dogtraining abilities and here I was committing the sins of the father myself. What next, getting up at four in the morning for walks to avoid meeting other dogs? All I needed was the flat cap and the walking stick and I was there!

While I was thinking about ways to address the problem, other, bigger pet quandaries came to light, the most devastating of which concerned Reggie.

All of us knew Reggie was getting old, slowing down, his neediness as endearing as it was unusual. Recon missions were still an integral part of life, but they seemed abbreviated, as though they were becoming a chore, a duty he no longer enjoyed. Then, one evening, at feeding time, the tinkle of dry cat food on metal failed to set off the lumpy thud of a cat dropping from a shelf upstairs.

“Anyone seen Reggie?”

The obvious answers ricocheted around the kitchen—“He’s probably still asleep in the closet,” “He might be trapped under the bed,” “I thought I saw him outside.” Common and uncommon hiding places were explored to no avail.

I called his name out the back door.

“Anyone notice anything wrong with him this morning?”

Head shaking and looks of confusion. None of us had picked up on any signs of sickness. He had eaten well and had been seen drinking from his water bowl, acting fine.

We let a couple of hours pass during which I imagined and investigated a number of improbable hiding places, places I had never seen him frequent but felt better checking out all the same. Then I grabbed a flashlight and hit the backyard, sweeping the beam back and forth, waiting for the glowing green dots to come bounding out of the undergrowth. But there was nothing. Though I told no one, I went out in front of the house, up and down the road, rooting around in the scrub and leaf litter along the sidewalk, just in case.

Nothing.

“He probably wandered off, got lost, and now he’s working his way home,” I told the kids. “Don’t look so worried. This is Reggie. This is ‘the Man.’ He knows what he’s doing. If he’s hungry he’ll just eat a cow. If he’s tired, he’ll hitch a ride or jack a car. Massachusetts is a cakewalk. There’s nothing out in these woods for him to be afraid of.”

The kids seemed troubled and upset, but they trusted their cat, the invincible daredevil who always escaped insurmountable danger, bursting into the spotlight at the last moment. He had always been a part of their lives. In the absence of illness how could that possibly change?

There was still no sign of Reggie the following morning, and by the following evening, after Sophie had eaten his food for the second night in a row, a fog of gloom and resignation was beginning to settle, with trembling lips, tears, and snappy emotional outbursts resistant to my fading optimism.

I checked in with neighbors, put in a call to the local police
department, but Kathy and I began to prime the kids for the possibility that Reggie wasn’t coming home.

All the credible scenarios were considered. Attacked by a wild animal, maybe a raccoon or a coyote—possible but deemed unlikely. Reggie’s feline reflexes may have been past their prime, but he never lost his street smarts. In the same way I found it hard to believe he was clipped by a car or mistimed a sprint across the road. I would have discovered evidence of trauma, his injured body by the roadside.

The kids favored a cat-napping, a theory I neither encouraged nor discouraged—disappearance with a remote possibility of return. It was always referred to in the manner of a mistake, not an abduction, as though some Johnny-on-the-spot had whisked him away just in case he was lost and Reggie was enjoying a temporary vacation, a brief retreat with “good people,” from which he would return refreshed and revitalized, ready to play down all the fuss.

Personally, I had a different theory, but one I believed, knowing Reggie, melded perfectly with his independent spirit and innate dignity. I was thinking about the famous British explorer Captain Robert Scott, who led an ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1912. Not only did Scott discover the Norwegians had got there first, but he and his men were not prepared for the challenge of the return journey and one by one the entire team succumbed to cold, starvation, and death. Notably, one particular officer, a Captain Lawrence Oates, suffering from severe frostbite, knew he was a burden, slowing down his colleagues, reducing their chances of survival. One day, in the middle of a blizzard, he turned to the others and rather famously announced, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Oates stepped outside his tent and was never seen again.

This suicide was always hailed as the mark of a courageous man
and in the same vain I believe Reggie made a choice, took control of his destiny, took us out of the equation and chose to die on his terms. If I had been more astute perhaps I would have found a note in the form of a warning, of subtle clinical markers of failing health. Of course Reggie could have been injured, he could have suffered some acute illness, but I tend to think he had known something wasn’t right for some time. I think he got his affairs in order and said his goodbyes, and we never knew it. He trotted off on his final patrol with no regrets, never once looking back, grateful to have lived as an independent spirit, and fully intending to die as one. This remarkable creature knew how to live. Why should I doubt his capacity for knowing how to die? If he had wanted to be nursed, treated, or cured, don’t you think he would have asked for help? Reggie went old school, with pride and dignity, finding himself a cozy warm spot where it was quiet and safe. There he curled up, closed his big green eyes for the last time, and went to sleep—the perfect end to the perfect feline life. We never found his body because I believe Reggie didn’t want it to be found. I think he discovered a way to leave behind one more reminder of how he lived. By going missing in action, he allowed us to believe he’s still out there somewhere, still busy doing what he does best, using up lives and having fun doing it.

It would have been easier to have a body. With no burial or cremation, there was no formal conclusion to Reggie’s life, no physical location where we could pay our respects, conjure his image, and recount memories. I recognized that Reggie’s open-ended departure felt just as frustrating as being unable to visit Patch’s final resting place.

It wasn’t long after Reggie pulled his “Amelia Earhart” that I received another sad phone call from my father informing me that Bess had been put to sleep.

“She’d been declining for some time,” he said, and I could sense he had seen this coming in a way he never had with Whiskey.

“It was the right thing to do, what with her incontinence, and then a stroke.”

I hadn’t mentioned it when Dad had been talking about Whiskey, but what we tend to think of as strokes in people are really quite uncommon in dogs. I hesitate to second-guess the diagnosis of a colleague, especially when I’m not there to examine the dog, but apparently lightning had struck twice. I don’t doubt the severity of the ailment that floored poor Bess. I imagine the veterinarian used the term
stroke
as a way of helping my parents appreciate the abrupt and terminal impact of Bess’s sudden deterioration. In the end, what does terminology matter? It was just semantics. Besides, once again I was in no position to argue, silently berating myself with “You weren’t even there.”

“I buried her with Whiskey. Back together at last. By heck, she missed him after he was gone.” He drifted with the memory of the two of them and I could tell he took solace from knowing they were back together, as though losing Bess had been hard but offset by the certainty that she would be reunited with Whiskey. “Reckon we’ll get a proper headstone for them both one of these days.”

“Sounds good,” I said, and then, without thinking, added, “Have you started asking mother about the possibility of another dog?”

Though it came out as a question, it was really a declaration of something we had both come to appreciate over time—for some of us, living with a pet can be a bit like finding religion; once you’ve been converted, it’s hard to imagine life without them.

“Not yet, son. It’s early days and you know what your mother’s like.”

I knew all right.

“Duncan,” I mimicked, “that was our last dog and don’t be asking me for any more.”

“That’s about the size of it,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Thankfully,” I said, “I’ve heard that one before.”

“Me too,” he said. “God willing, me too.”

Perhaps the idea first crossed my mind when I was thinking back to the heyday of Whiskey and Bess. Maybe it seemed like a possible solution to the problem of Sophie’s antisocial behavior. Whatever the reason, the idea was already rattling around the back of my mind when my daughter exploited a moment of inescapable paternal weakness.

As I have mentioned before, Emily’s CF required periods of hospitalization during which she was bombarded with an assortment of hardcore intravenous antibiotics. Ever since she was an infant, Emily’s body has chosen to reject these medications in the form of allergic reactions ranging from unrelenting itchiness with disfiguring skin lesions all the way through to life-threatening blood-clotting disorders. In short, her body abhors the very drugs that help to keep her alive.

For this reason, these hospitalizations were always mingled with anxious anticipation and fear, not least when Emily was started on a new drug.

“Look, we’ll begin in the ICU and desensitize her to the antibiotic. By increasing her dose in tiny increments we can fool her body into accepting the drug.”

Her new pediatric pulmonologist spoke with the confidence of someone who had yet to discover the challenges of treating Emily—in time he would come to realize who and what he was dealing with—but for now we played along, preferring his proactive rather than reactive approach. And so, one morning, at around 2 a.m., I found myself sitting beside Emily in the intensive care unit of Children’s Hospital in Boston. Despite the hour, despite being entangled in the tentacles of wires and leads from so many monitors, despite the hubbub of noise and nurses all around, nine-year-old Emily in her pigtails and modest johnny was busy pretending to stick needles in my arms, ripping sticky bandages off my hairy flesh, savoring every wince and whine, thankful she could release her pent-up fears and pain on someone she trusted.

She had just convinced a passing nurse to photograph her tormented father with a Polaroid camera, when she said, “Daddy, do you think you could buy me a yellow Labrador?”

Her voice was so small, so innocent, the timing too improbable to feel anything other than spontaneous. It felt like a cry for help—a pure request for companionship, the stress of this moment, the anticipation of more untoward side effects, the need for unconditional security helping her find the words.

Ordinarily I might have offered my daughter a wan smile, reminding her that Daddy works for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a facility with its own animal adoption shelter.

“Why would we purchase a new dog when there are so many abandoned dogs in need of a loving home?” I might have said, and that would be that, Emily nodding her understanding, looking a little bashful for being insensitive to the problem of pet overpopulation. Truthfully, I wish this had been the case, but at that moment in time, in that precise situation, watching your daughter being
poked and prodded, with tubes and cables running in and out of her body, frightened about how her body will react, I defy most parents not to be vulnerable to a child’s wish, no matter what it is.

“Of course,” I said. “Once we get out of the hospital, we’ll get you a dog.”