Baby, Be My Last (The Fairfields Book 3)

by Piper Lennox

  “I know.” Her makeup smears when she wipes her eyes with her sweatshirt. I notice her shoes, a little too big and caked with mud, and her calf-length leggings. She must be freezing.

  “Here.” She thanks me as I slip my coat onto her shoulders.

  We stand outside the door a moment. Camille looks in through the gridded window and takes a long, shuddering kind of breath.

  “I think,” she whispers, “I have to let him go.”

  “Camille, I told you—I want to pay for whatever he needs.”

  “It’s more than his leg or his hip.” My sleeves drape past her fingers; she pushes them up and picks at the nail polish on her thumb. “The cancer is everywhere. They told me he’s going blind and deaf...that’s what happens when dogs get old. And, please—don’t...don’t joke that he isn’t old. I know he is.”

  My protests, all the ways I can make this easier for her, silence themselves.

  “I keep focusing on the cancer as the worst part,” she goes on, “but it’s not. It’s the spinal cord injury. They said he’ll have paresis. So even when the bones heal, he won’t be able to walk very well. Maybe not at all.” Her voice drops again. “He won’t be able to run.”

  I draw my own deep breath, fighting the ache in my chest.

  “He wouldn’t want to live this way.” She presses her palm to the glass and shuts her eyes, when I wipe one of her tears away with my thumb. “I can’t keep him alive just so I won’t have to say goodbye yet. If taking away his pain means that I have to hurt for a while...then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  I hold her other hand and squeeze. “You’re sure?”

  Her answer takes a long time. But when she gives it, I’ve never heard anything so quiet, but so resolved.

  “Yes,” she whispers. Her hand slides from the glass down to the handle. “I’m sure.”

  I read a poem, once, about how dogs don’t go to heaven. Not right away.

  Instead, they wait for us. In a field where it’s always summertime, daylight stretching endlessly from one end to the other, they play and roll around and do whatever they like. They don’t limp. They don’t hurt, or want, or suffer.

  Then, suddenly, there comes a day when a dog sees something in the distance. He halts and perks up, watching this figure move closer to the field.

  And when he realizes it’s his owner, his person, he runs to them.

  Our dogs leap into our arms. They lick our faces. We’re both free of anything that plagued us in life. They run around us like they’re young dogs again, puppies, even—and then we cross the bridge together, into the afterlife.

  When I pull up the plastic chair and lay my head on the table beside Arrow’s, I tell him to have fun there. “I know you’ll wait for me,” I whisper, feeling my tears pool on the metal underneath my face, “but play with the other dogs, too. Don’t spend too much time missing me. Okay?”

  The vet checks something on the assistant’s clipboard before looking at me. “Would you like to stay during the procedure?”

  “Yes.” I don’t look away from Arrow’s eyes. They’ve given him a sedative and heavy painkillers, so I’m shocked to see him wake when I rub his head. The blink he gives in slow-motion, the flicker of his eye as he takes in my face, so close to his, makes me smile in a way I didn’t think I’d be capable of doing.

  I rest my hand on his neck and scratch his fur until his eye closes again. They have me move to the head of the table, out of the way while they prep his arm.

  The sight of the syringe terrifies me, this calm blue that will end it all, in a matter of minutes, and take him from me.

  No, I remind myself, the liquid that will take his pain away. That will send him to that field, to wait for me.

  He goes quickly. I close my eyes and press my forehead to his, the short fur on his muzzle scratching my nose.

  “Bye, buddy,” I whisper, in the silence after they dim the lights and leave us alone. Just me and him. “I’ll see you there, someday.”

  30

  “Right here?”

  Camille nods and swipes at her eyes. She hasn’t cried much today, surprisingly—but maybe she’s just cried out from last night. I could tell when she called me, somewhere around three a.m., that her evening wasn’t going well.

  It gutted me that I wasn’t there beside her. We’ve been navigating our reunion slowly, both of us unsure of where to begin amidst Arrow’s death. I know we’ll talk about the breakup eventually, when the time’s right.

  Until then, though, we’re just friends.

  So when she called me, I didn’t try to fix anything. I didn’t remind her of the rainbow bridge poem she told me about. I didn’t remind her that Arrow wasn’t in pain anymore, or that that was something to be glad about. She didn’t need reminding. She didn’t need fixing.

  She just needed me to listen. So I did.

  “This is better,” she says. “I’m sorry I made you drive all over the place, today.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I tell her, carefully shrugging off my backpack and kneeling in the blond, dry grass of the field. “You didn’t know the river wouldn’t be the right spot until...well, until you were standing there.”

  “I just thought the bridge was going to be perfect, like in the poem.” Her hair blows across her face; she turns into the wind and pulls it back. The skin under her eyes is raw and pink, the combination of tears and winter air. “But once we were standing there…I just couldn’t do it.”

  Slowly, I pull the wooden box from my backpack and hand it to her. “Do you think you can now?”

  “Yes.” She takes a breath, long and measured. “This is the right spot.”

  We stand on the edge of the pond at the McIntyre Farm and watch the wind skitter across the surface, chilling us right through our coats and the long underwear under our jeans. This is the coldest December in decades. I’m honestly shocked there’s no snowfall or freezing rain; the sky is pale, clear blue.

  “Should we say something?” I whisper, when we’ve stood there a while, neither of us speaking or moving.

  Camille nods, but stares at the box without opening it. “There’s so much I want to say to him still, and about him, but...I don’t know where to start.”

  “Like this,” I say. “Talk to me about him.”

  After a skeptical double-take, she smiles. “Did I ever tell you about the time he took Mom’s leg?”

  “Her leg?”

  “Yeah. You know—her prosthetic. It was the first one she ever got, and he just stole it and gnawed it all up, and....” Her voice trails, when she catches me staring at her like she’s crazy. “...and,” she goes on, tucking some hair behind her ear she missed, “I just realized I never told you about my mom’s amputation. Okay.”

  My laugh echoes across the field, swept off by another gust of wind. “Wow. Well, I’m glad you told me now, before I said something stupid like, ‘Break a leg,’ to her.”

  “Being that my mother is not, and has never been, involved in any theatrical productions,” she laughs, carefully opening the box, “I think you would have been fine.”

  The ashes are in a plastic bag, folded and taped. Camille’s hands shake when she tries to peel it back, but she refuses my help when I offer. I don’t push it, instead stepping back and waiting. There are some things in life you just have to do yourself. Just to prove—either to the world, family, friends, or yourself—that you can.

  “The people at the shelter named him Lucky, before he got to me,” she says. I realize she’s not looking at the ashes, but into the pond. “Dad said it was because he was stuck in a closet for two days until Animal Control got there, and they didn’t think he’d make it to the shelter.”

  I smile. “He proved them wrong.”

  “He did. So...I guess he was lucky. But so was I. Because, as soon as I got him...I felt like I had someone I could talk to. Someone who just listened, and didn’t tell me whatever I was feeling was good or bad, or that I shouldn’t be scared or angry. And that
’s what I needed, back then.” She swallows, setting the box in the grass, and grips the bag in both hands as she straightens. “I was the lucky one.”

  “Where did his new name come from?”

  “Dad picked it, for the song. ‘Me and My Arrow.’” The wind blows again. I step close to her, shielding her from as much of it as I can.

  “‘Arrow,’” I say, and she looks at me. “I don’t know, seems just as fitting as ‘Lucky,’ if you ask me. Probably more so.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Arrows point us in the right direction. Help us make the right choices.” I take off my scarf and tuck it around her neck, into the open part of her coat. “As a kid, you tried to shut everything out, but he made you stop doing that. And as an adult, you thought life had to be all work, all the time. But when you played with Arrow? You were actually enjoying life, the way we’re supposed to.”

  Camille considers this, then agrees. “Hanging out with you felt like that, too,” she adds, blushing.

  “I’m flattered. But please don’t put me into a contest I couldn’t possibly win.”

  Together, we look out across the field. Remembering, I think, when we brought Arrow here a few weeks ago, and played like the day would never end.

  “I guess that’s it,” she says, opening the bag as she kneels in the mud around the pond.

  We watch the ashes scatter on the surface of the water like ice crystals. Some kick up in the breeze and vanish into the grass around us. Most of them catch the wind at just the right height, blending into the sky before we can track them.

  “This was a good spot,” I tell her. We fold the bag carefully and put it back into the box.

  In the truck, she cups her hands around the heater and watches a cloud, the first one of the day, encroach the property over the tree line. I don’t say anything: I’m sure she needs silence, right now.

  Apparently, I’m wrong.

  “What’s so funny?” I ask, slightly alarmed when she bursts out laughing.

  “I was just thinking about your face,” she manages, holding her side, “when I told you about Mom’s leg.”

  “Yeah, seems like something you should have mentioned earlier,” I quip, which just makes her laugh that much harder. Soon I’m laughing, too.

  When we calm down, Camille presses her sleeves to her eyes again—happy tears, this time—and says, “I am sorry, though. I could have sworn I told you.”

  “It’s fine.” I turn up the heat another click. “There are a few things I haven’t told you, yet.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like,” I say, flicking the air freshener on the rearview, “the fact I turned down the job at the Acre.”

  “What?” She stops massaging the feeling back into her fingers and studies me. “When?”

  “Four days ago.”

  Out of my periphery, I see her shoulders straighten. “The day Arrow....”

  “Yeah. I’d just come from the estate, actually.”

  Camille sits back in her seat, staring at the dashboard.

  After a long silence, she says, “Why? Not because of what I said, or—or to get me back, right, because—”

  “Relax,” I tell her, laughing under my breath. “It wasn’t you. Not for any bad reasons, at least.” The wind rocks the truck. We take a moment to lean forward and watch the sky, filling with clouds faster than the low murmur on the radio could’ve predicted. “I realized I was taking it for the wrong reasons.”

  “I was wrong,” she says sharply. “You hadn’t changed. I was...I don’t know, projecting, I guess, and putting my insecurities on you.”

  “You were partially right: I would have changed, down the line. That job wasn’t for me. Nothing about it sounded like me. The only reasons I even considered it was because the pay was good, and because I thought my dad owed it to me.”

  She hesitates. “What about trial-and-error?”

  “That’s the thing about trying new stuff: sometimes you know, before you even do it, you aren’t going to like it. The better you know yourself, the better you know which opportunities to take.” I glance at her. “And which ones to leave on the table.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  I laugh. “Believe it or not...the other Fairfields.”

  She crosses her arms, amused. “Really?”

  “Yeah, I was so not expecting it, but...Caitlin-Anne isn’t as dumb or bratty as people think. She isn’t the brightest crayon in the box, of course,” I add, which makes Camille giggle; she covers her mouth out of shame, until I laugh, too, “but she’s kind of sweet. More than I expected.

  “And her...our cousins? They’re so laid-back. Just really cool people, and you can tell they live their lives...the way they want to. Not the way Fairfields are ‘supposed’ to.”

  She waits, then offers, “The way your dad lives?”

  “Exactly.”

  Her phone pings. “Text from Lupé,” she announces, sighing, “asking if I can pick up an extra shift.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight…and tomorrow, and the next day.” Faintly, she smiles and starts to text back.

  When she sets her phone in the cupholder, I ask, “What’d you tell him?”

  “I said I have more important things to do this week.” Her eyes trace the shape of the empty box at her feet. “Not that I couldn’t use the money—Brynn and I want to get out of that neighborhood as fast as possible, with rent going up in January. But….”

  “More important things,” I finish.

  “Yeah. Like Christmas shopping with my mom. Hanging out with you.” She shrugs, rubbing the last bit of chill out of her arms. “Maybe some time to just...do nothing. Grieve Arrow properly, you know?”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” I reach across her and flip down the hatch to the glove box. “And for the money thing—here. Maybe that will help.”

  Camille holds the envelope up to the fading light and shoots me a look. “Silas, I told you this with the whole cremation argument: I’m not comfortable just taking money from you, if I’ve got it. I’ll be fine.”

  “I know, I know. Miss Self-Reliance over here. Just open it.”

  She tears off one end and blows into the envelope, peeking in. When she sees that it’s a check, she rolls her eyes.

  But when she sees who it’s from, she covers her mouth.

  “Everyoung Ice Cream,” I explain, as she takes the check out and stares at it, “absolutely loved your flavor names. They didn’t go with all of them—because, you know: they’re idiots—but they used a lot.”

  “How did you...?” Her eyes stagger to mine. “I don’t work there.”

  “Well, not officially.” I smile and shift the car out of Park, following the worn dirt driveway to the main road. “I told them you’re a freelance creative consultant I brought onto the rebrand project.”

  “Freelance creative consultant,” she repeats. “Is that even a thing?”

  “Absolutely. You can be a freelance anything. And you can be a consultant on anything, for that matter. This is actually a real title, something you’d find in job listings. You should hear the kinds of titles the big wigs give themselves. Nothing but ego inflation.”

  After a beat, she smirks. “Like hotel general manager?”

  “Easy,” I laugh. “I didn’t take the job. You can’t tease me about it for too much longer.”

  We hit the asphalt with a thud, the truck groaning before I swing it onto the road. I’m not sure where we’re going: her place, mine. Somewhere else entirely, maybe. I’ll let her decide, when the first turn pops up.

  “When you offered to pay for Arrow’s surgeries,” she says, a few minutes later, “you had already turned down the job.” After I nod, she adds, “And you knew I’d be getting this check?”

  “Stole it out of your parents’ mailbox right before I left,” I tell her, “that very same night.” I swerve around a trash bag billowing across the lanes. “Giving it to you then seemed in bad taste, though.
Hope it was okay I waited. And please don’t report my federal offense to your father.”

  Camille continues to stare at the check. It’s not much (at least, not as much as I think she deserved), but I wonder if it feels like a lot to her. The first check she’ll cash and keep completely for herself, without anyone forcing her to do so. Her rent, her bills. Her life.

  “You were going to pay for him,” she whispers, “out of your own pocket. No Fairfield money, nothing from your new job...even when you knew I’d be getting this, and could have done it myself.”

  “You are reading that amount correctly, right?”

  “I know the treatments and surgeries would have been way more. I could have done a payment plan or something.”

  I glance at her. “Would you? If I’d given it to you sooner, I mean.”

  “No.” She folds the check in half and slides it into her wallet, in her purse by the wooden box. “Money wasn’t the issue. I know I made the right choice, not letting him suffer. I’m just saying, I can’t believe you did that. I thought....”

  “I was only offering because I knew I’d be making big bucks in, like, two days?” I joke. “Nice, cushy Fairfield job—what’s a few grand?”

  “My point is,” she emphasizes, then sinks in her seat, features softening, “thank you. It was a generous offer no matter what. But...especially now, knowing what I do.”

  “You’re worth it.” I let go of the shifter and find her hand on the seat, then lift it to my mouth and kiss it. At the same time, we glance at the box again. “So was he.”

  At the first intersection, I ask where she wants to go. Straight ahead takes us to Hillford, via another nothing town where the entire population could fit inside the post office it doesn’t have. Right is the fastest way to the city from here. And left eventually becomes a state route, clear across the border, if you follow it long enough.

  “I think,” she says, sounding exhausted, “I should go home and sleep.”

  Understandable as this is—God knows she didn’t sleep well, last night—I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. I’ve missed her so much, in every possible way, that I can’t imagine dropping her off and just leaving. Again.