She had the sense from Luke that they were on some sort of important mission. She wanted to make him proud. And she did. When their visit ended each week, they would often spend time in the massive expanse of green turf outside the facility. Sugar was especially happy here, chasing tennis balls. When she was ready for a break, she would find a place along the fence line nearest the building.
It was odd to him that she seemed drawn to the very spot that he’d first met Noel all those years ago, but he would indulge her each time as they rested in the grass.
Other times, and especially in the evening when the sky was dark, they would drive to school to run and play on the football field. On one such night, while on his back in the grass looking up at the moon, he vowed that this time, there was nothing and no one that would stand between him and his dog. Sugar was a lifetime companion. He was not letting her go until the end.
He served as the fix-it guy for his neighbors, Clare and Francis. Bless their hearts. They never called him for the little things. But from time to time when neither was capable of some task, they would put out a request.
Little Ace and two of the Coco-Chi trio had passed. Mocha was still spry, but her parents could not bear to call her by that name. She was simply Coco-Chi now.
They’d learned to keep Torch in the bedroom when Luke was around. Though he’d not seen his sister for quite some time, the scent of her alone could arouse him sufficiently to cause such an agitation that Clare and Francis worried for his health. He was deteriorating and they did not wish to hasten the process.
Luke on the other hand, saw it differently. If this dog had little time left to live, why not let him live it in the company of his sister? A life lived sleeping a box with no hope was no life at all.
At first, he was subtle in communicating his opinion. It wasn’t his business really. But meeting Torch and observing him was shocking. His sadness was palpable.
Finally, he offered to take Torch in for his remaining days, however long they would be. Francis and Clare were resistant. To them, it seemed like a form of euthanasia. To Luke, they’d spent too long observing Torch from inside this bubble. It took someone from the outside to make the point. Torch was entering his fourth year when the couple finally relented.
“Let’s give him a happy ending,” Francis said as he held his wife’s hand, Torch’ leash in his other. And with that, they walked him next door to live out his final days with Sugar and Luke.
Sugar welcomed Torch as though they’d never been apart. Luke momentarily regretted his insistence on the arrangement as he witnessed the emotional the reunion. Torch was a basket case. Luke literally prayed for the dog to live through that first night, so that his neighbors wouldn’t hate him for killing their dog.
Some years later, he would swear to anyone interested in hearing the story that Torch willed himself to stay alive just to be with Sugar. He surprised them all. He lived through his fourth year without a scare. He spent his days curled up with his sister, following her around the house. And she gave of herself freely. There was no jealousy, no fear from Sugar that she was missing out on her time with Luke. It was as if she understood that there would be time. For now, Torch could have every part of her.
The outings were put on hold. They were too much excitement for Torch. And the stress of having Sugar leave without him wasn’t fair. There was no explanation for the attachment, but some part of Luke could relate to Torch. He was happy he’d arranged it. He’d identified the need, acted on it and made it happen. He’d made a difference. Torch’s transformation was a remarkable thing. Sugar had succeeded in bringing yet another soul alive again.
Just as Nancy, Torch faded from life on Earth snuggled with Sugar. They’d grown accustomed to sleeping so close that one heartbeat seemed to wait for the other’s. Hers and then his. His and then hers. She felt him leave her in the darkness of the night when her heart spoke and his no longer answered. She released a deep mourning moan as she rested her head upon him.
A dog’s heart feels the pain of loss as greatly as any other living soul. Sugar felt that pain as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep without the other half of her beating heart.
* * * * *
Luke knew he’d done the right thing. Torch’ life may have been short, but he’d spent the last of his time in the best place. He was proud of Sugar in a way that was hard to describe. He admired the way she’d cared for her brother, how she seemed to sense the preciousness of the time they shared. Sugar made him respect dogs in a way that even his other experiences had not. She made him want to be a better man.
When they’d had a chance to mourn the loss, they eventually returned to their regular activities. Today was Saturday morning and Saturday mornings were reserved for projects around the house. The old house needed some TLC and Luke had put off the monumental task of tackling the attic for months. He was done procrastinating. Sugar followed him up the stairs and into the dusty room.
“Ugh,” he said to himself as he scanned the space.
It was going to take more than one Saturday. The room had barely been touched for decades. It was time to clear it out. He started at one end with one box. Sugar sniffed around, but couldn’t pick up anything much but the mingled odors of dust and moth balls. She kept trying at her end of the room while Luke continued on his. It was slow going. Luke was sorting items into keep, donate and trash piles. Fixing up the house was therapeutic, as was the simple act of decluttering. The attic was actually a bright, lovely space. It could be renovated and used for another purpose.
Sugar had given up looking for anything interesting and had found a place on the floor to nap. From time to time, she would stir to see Luke continuing his work. Then she would get up and try again herself. She walked over to all the sorted objects in an effort to detect an interesting scent. Nothing. She’d resolved that attic cleaning was boring. Life was better at the park.
At the risk of blowing dust about the room, Luke opened a window. A slight breeze found its way in, gently perusing the room. It was as though the pure air was afraid to enter this alien, untouched world. Sugar’s nose perked up as piles of dust were lifted and moved. She got up and started exploring again.
Luke had busied himself in one corner, flipping through old photo albums mostly holding images of relatives he could barely remember. Sugar was drawn to the boxes on her side, which were tucked into the triangular section of space that formed her end of the A-frame roof.
An old chest was propped open, over time becoming mostly a receptacle for all that dust. Nancy was obviously the last one up here. And the state of the chest, its hinge completely open, seemed to indicate that she’d also been interested in doing a cleanup job in the attic herself. From all appearances, she’d started right here with the chest and perhaps been interrupted midway through.
From behind him, Luke could hear the unmistakable sound of his dog sneezing.
“Bless you, Sugar girl.”
A small, indistinct box was among the objects contained in the chest. And here is where Sugar’s nose alarm went off. Finally, something interesting. The box lid ajar, she could easily push it away with her nose. Inside were precious treasures, long ago stored and forgotten. She wanted them all. But like a polite child, she knew she would need permission. Instinctively, she decided it best to bring Luke a sample of what she’d found. He would either let her keep it or quickly let her know she was not allowed.
The easiest item to carry was the one with the hard shell, the one that had a little weight to it. She picked up the archaic cell phone gently in her teeth and carried it over to him.
Luke was seated on an overturned bucket, looking through volumes of photographs. He saw Sugar approach from the corner of his eye, but didn’t realize she had something in her mouth – not until she came up next to him and sat back on her heels.
He looked over to see her holding his old cell phone. He hadn’t seen it since he was a teenager. It was like a museum artifact, a primitive gizmo long since
discarded for superior models.
“Oh my God.”
He placed his palm face up before her and she dropped it gently in his hand. Sugar looked at him expectantly, wondering if what she’d found was as incredible as she supposed. Luke looked down at the phone.
There were spaces of time in his life where such an event would have brought him to his knees. This time he looked to Sugar and to the phone and back again to Sugar. He wanted to allow himself to make some profound connection between the dog and this phone, but he brushed it away, almost embarrassed to entertain the thoughts that flashed in his brain.
Instead, he turned the phone over in his hand, marveling. There were no tears. He smiled at memories from long ago. He smiled at a love that hung on tight for a lifetime, even with nothing to sustain it. He smiled at the tenacity of his seventeen year-old love, Grace. He smiled because she knew football as well as he did. She could suggest a play he’d never considered, because she knew the talents of every guy on their high school team. He smiled as he recalled her frustration with him and his inability to grasp all the concepts of high school chemistry.
He smiled, knowing that her last moments in life were spent trying to find the perfect dress – for him. He smiled because he knew that she would have been happy to go to the dance in sweat pants. She didn’t care what anybody else thought.
He thought about trying to juice up the phone. There were pictures stored, messages frozen in time. He decided not to. It was best to leave the memories where they were. He was in a good place. He could smile now without crying. It was enough that Sugar had reminded him.
She watched him hold the phone in his hands. And then he began to stroke her. “Good girl, Sugar.” Her tail went about wagging briskly. That was a sentence she understood. He was pleased. Without warning, he handed the phone back to her.
“It’s yours girl. You can keep it.”
She took it gently in her mouth, her tail still going. She was excited. All this time in the attic seemed so pointless. But now she’d found her very own treasure. She turned to carry it out of the room and down the stairs.
Luke stood up and brushed the dust from his shirt. That was enough for today. He went to the open chest and found the old shoebox. Although tempted to sift through the items, he did not allow himself. To do so was simply a form of self-torture. He’d tortured himself his whole life. It was time to let it go.
He pulled the box out and walked over to place it in the sorted pile of items to be discarded. He was saying goodbye not to Grace, but to the dreams of a life that could never be. There was nothing inside that box that was going to make him feel better. Not Grace’s sweet notes, their dating souvenirs, not the letter he’d received from Rebecca and never read. None of it. All he wanted now were his own memories.
* * * * *
Seasons passed. Winter nights were spent in the living room with the fireplace roaring. Summers were spent at the lake, where Sugar would chase tennis balls along the shore and into the water. Fall was a time for racing the football field. Spring was always about renewal. Luke continued to transform his childhood home into something new and fresh. Every project served to erase a bit of the past. By the age of sixty-two, he had transformed not just his house, but himself. He was finally healed.
Every day was a gift. It was a simple life. Most would not have been impressed. Most would have wanted more. But he was content to have created his own form of an ideal life. He didn’t spend his time wishing away the days for something else.
He woke up every morning, pleased that he’d been given another day. He laughed more. He was never cold at night, because Sugar was always tucked in tight beside him. He marveled at the speeding heart within her chest, how her life was zooming ahead. If there was one thing in life he regretted, it was only that he could do nothing to keep her from getting older. He wanted Sugar to be with him until the end.
Life is always reminding us to be careful what we wish for. Luke had Sugar until the end. Right until the end. But not her end. One evening on the football field, while pitching tennis balls to his aging dog, Luke succumbed to a massive heart attack. It seemed the universe had granted him the kindness to take him while he was in the very place he loved most in this world.
The city did not have a church big enough to hold his services. There were too many men – men of all ages, who insisted that nothing was good enough for their coach but to memorialize him right there in the football stadium.
The service took hours. So many people wanted to talk about him. To thank him. To say goodbye.
A dog understands loss. A dog knows what it is to be in the presence of a body, its soul flown away. Sugar knew Luke was gone. She had the good fortune to be returned to her former home. Clare and Francis were still ticking along, even if slowly. Once again, and for the last time, they accepted a homeless child into their home.
Sugar came to them as dog who seemed to understand that life was different now. The best of times were behind her. Still, she gifted the couple with her sweet disposition, her kind heart. She didn’t sleep in bed with anyone anymore. She had her own special place just in the spot her whelping box had long ago been.
She slept there every night, never interested in a bone or a toy, but always with the ancient cell phone next to her. Then one night without event or injury, she too was taken in her sleep, her journey to find Luke finally at an end.
CHAPTER Seventeen
This was the last time, the final ride. She tried to soak it in, all of it. Here they were again – the larger shooting star souls like herself and the tiny white twinkle lights moving down. Some were on their way to reunions and others to new beginnings.
And then it occurred to her for the first time. Gabe had gone with her. He’d actually done it. That he would go back to Earth and be subject to whatever experiences awaited him, that was bravery, and true friendship. She owed him now more than ever before.
She tried to envision where Luke had gone, which way he’d flown, but she could not get a sense of it. She was only ever able to feel him while he was on Earth. He was not there anymore.
They’d had their time together. She was so grateful for that. She couldn’t control the rules, but she could certainly bend them. She had bent them. She was proud of herself. Exerting one’s free will was liberating. She’d known what she wanted and she’d gotten it. It would be difficult not to gloat.
It wasn’t all victorious, however. Luke was now farther away than he’d ever been. He was reuniting with his soul mates on another world. He was having his assessment far away from her. And for that reason, something would always be missing on Castellans.
The ride was slowing. Once again, the floor moved beneath her, the walls formed on all sides. For the first time, she felt as though she were actually returning home. For the first time, she was ready to be here. She was at peace. The corridor opened up before her. The light filled space filled her with warmth once again. Gabe’s door was open. She moved toward it.
As she stepped into the corridor, she was immediately on her knees. The pain was back – back and worse than ever – back and unbearable. It captured her breath, so that she felt as though she were choking on the pain. She looked up from the floor towards Gabe’s office. She wanted to call for him, but she could not.
She tried to counsel herself through it. Breathe baby, breathe. She inched forward on all fours. Holy crap, this was bad. Even as she crawled towards Gabe’s office, she wished it were the assessment room. She’d gladly go now. There was nothing else to hold out for. The assessment room meant relief.
She used her arms to push herself up from the floor. She crawled to the closest wall. The cloudy white energy around her moved in closer. She didn’t fight it. She was begging for mercy. She received it. A flood of light and relief washed over her. It wasn’t sufficient to dispel the pain, but it lessened enough that she could move. She braced herself against the wall and rose to her feet.
Finally, she reached the open door. She wa
lked in and immediately used the chair next to her for support. Even as she let herself fall into the seat, she realized Gabe wasn’t here. Across his desk, sitting in his chair, was someone else.
Her hair was fireball red, hanging in ultra tight ringlets to her chin. Her eyes were midnight blue, her face decorated with a multitude of freckles. She smiled at Grace’s entrance.
“You’re here! Hello Grace!”
Nobody on Castellans had ever welcomed her with so much zeal.
“I’m Liz.”
“Hi, Liz. I’m miserable.”
The unexpected statement had Liz laughing before she could stop herself. Her smile revealed double dimples and a redness in her cheeks.
“I don’t understand why this pain is back. We had it beat. It was gone. What the hell is this?”
“Grace, this can be a confusing time. I’m sure you have a ton of questions. You’ll get all the answers when you have your assessment.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She’d heard this all before. “Where’s Gabe?”
“Gabe couldn’t be here.” Liz was still smiling, but the mirth in her eyes was gone.
“Why not?”
“That’s a long story.”
Geez. Was it really going to be like this again?
“Okay. Okay. Point me to my assessment. I’ll see him at my retreat.”
Now the smile was gone, too.
“Holy crap, Liz. What the hell is going on?”
Liz paused for a moment, before she spoke again. When she said her next words, it seemed very much like she was just talking out loud to herself, more than she was to Grace.
“Well, I don’t see what difference it makes at this point. It’s all a mess anyways. Gabe isn’t here.” She’d stopped talking, but she obviously had more to say. “Gabe’s not here.”
“Okay, you said that.”
Paradox Love: Paradox Love Book 1 Page 20
