Brodie took one last look at the blood. Then he turned and joined Tuck and Patsy, walking away.
“You just blew a lot of soul, smart stuff,” Patsy said. “And for what?”
“I helped him,” Brodie said.
“Did you? So you think they’re gonna be, like, best friends tomorrow? You think that creep’s gonna be less mean tomorrow, less mad, when you’ve gone off to your precious Forever and the kid on the roof is still stuck down here? You think you helped him, mutt?”
“I did what I could,” Brodie snarled, and he snapped at Patsy with his teeth. The fur on his back was raised and his lip was pulled back, showing the bright white anger of his teeth.
“Hey!” Patsy protested, flinching away.
“Take it easy, Brodie!” Tuck said, stepping between them.
“Yeah, psycho. I ain’t got much shine left, you know, and I’m a helluva lot more interested in keeping it than you seem to be.”
Brodie shook his head, flapping his ears and trying to clear the anger and guilt and hurt from his heart.
“Sorry,” Brodie muttered, staring up ahead the way they were walking. “It’s just … I didn’t mean to hurt him, okay? But … but … I don’t like it when big people are mean to little people. I don’t like it when people are mean to kids.”
“Sure, dog. I get it. But what you don’t get is that none of this garbage is your problem. You don’t belong in the world of the living anymore. All you’re gonna do is make a mess. And lose your soul along the way.”
“I did what I could,” Brodie said again. “What else can we do? Yeah, I didn’t fix the world. I can’t fix that kid’s tomorrow. Maybe all I can do is make today less dark for him. But if that’s all I can do, shouldn’t I do it?”
And Brodie? Brodie was right. That is all we can do. But that doesn’t give us less reason to do it. It gives us more. Believe me.
And that kid, the kid up on the roof? He didn’t know who to be grateful to. That’s true. But he was grateful, all the same. He was.
And that other kid, the one dripping blood and anger onto the snow? Well, that kid’s on his own journey, too. He’s got his own darkness. And his own light. And pulling someone back from darkness, even if it’s their own darkness, is always a good thing. It’s always worth it.
The three spirits walked on, the shadows still growing around them.
“This is it,” Brodie cut in, stopping abruptly. The other two stopped beside him. He was looking at the back of a run-down house with a falling-down fence and a glum yard strewn with junk. “This is it,” he said again. His tail started to wag.
“This is our home.”
Without even pausing to think, Brodie was running. He ran right through the gap-toothed fence—not even thinking as he leapt touchlessly through the wood. He raced through the dingy snow in the backyard, past the rusted-out wagon that Aiden used to play in, past the familiar red sled half-buried in snow, past the dented garbage can half-full of beer cans.
He stopped only once, and only for a moment. By the back door.
There were two plastic bowls on the porch. One red, one blue. Brodie remembered. Every day, Aiden had filled the red one with food and the blue one with water. For him. For Brodie.
They were still there. Empty, except for some snow, but there.
Brodie looked at them for just a moment, then ran through the back door and into his house.
When he was in, standing there in the dark little kitchen, he forgot Patsy’s warning about smelling. He stood and sucked in one big, hungry breath. He let it tingle and swirl in his nose.
It was full of all the familiar smells of home. It smelled like food, and beer, and the old couch in the living room, and the shaggy stained carpeting, and the old coffee maker on the counter that was turned on every morning.
It smelled like Brodie, too … like his fur and his food and his wet, muddy paws.
It smelled like memories. Like nights curled up on the couch with Aiden, eating popcorn and watching the flickering lights of the TV. Like weekend breakfasts, and the strips of bacon that Aiden would slip to Brodie under that table.
But most of all, it smelled like Aiden. Like his breath and his body and his boyness. Like his hair and his clothes and his laugh and his eyes and the tight way that his arms hugged.
Brodie stood there, smelling and remembering and wagging. He stood there in his house and felt like he was at home.
Away. And Back. He was back.
But that wag? It didn’t last for long. Because, little by little, Brodie realized he was not a lost dog, returning to his home. No. That’s what he wanted to be. But he knew it wasn’t the truth. Not anymore. Not ever again. That knowing rose up from deep down inside him, to front and center.
Because the Brodie smells—those doggy smells of fur and paw—were faint, and fading. They were already more like echoes than smells.
And on top of them were other smells he’d forgotten. Smells of him. Not Aiden. Someone else.
The shouter. The growler. The kicker and the hitter. The thrower. The drinker and the snorer.
Dad. The word was there. Aiden’s dad. And with that word, all the blurry darkness of Brodie’s worst memories came into focus.
That monster—the one who haunted his last memory, the one who snarled and charged and kicked and yelled and hurt—the monster who had called him back here, called him back here to save his boy? That monster had a face now, and a name. Dad.
It had a smell, too.
It smelled like beer and sweat and grease and piney aftershave and clothes worn too many times.
And that smell was all over the house, crowding out the smells of good memories and the smells of Brodie and even the smells of Aiden. Especially the smells of Aiden.
Brodie sniffed again, harder. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bright glow of Tuck and the dimmer glow of Patsy step through the door behind him. But he focused on the smells of Aiden and how they smelled … stale. Faded. Old.
His tail fell still.
He didn’t like what his nose was telling him. It was telling him that Aiden wasn’t there. And that he hadn’t been there in quite a while.
“No,” he said. He ran out of the kitchen, down the hall, to the last room at the end. His memory was alive now, vivid and sharp, like he had just left—like he was still alive.
This was Aiden’s room. The door was closed. The windowless hallway was dark. Brodie walked through the scratched-up old door and into Aiden’s room.
If Brodie’d had a heart that still beat, it would have stopped. Not from fear. Not even from heartbreak. Just from feeling. Just from too much.
That small, messy, shadowy room was full to the ceiling with Aiden. With his smell. And his stuff. And his clothes and his bed and his backpack and his books. His pictures and his old toys and stuffed animals.
It was full of Aiden. So full of Aiden that if Brodie’d had lungs that still breathed, he would have been unable to.
But the room was also completely empty of Aiden.
The curtains were pulled closed. The bedsheets were thrown back messily like they always were, like he’d just gotten up. But Brodie could tell from the dormant dustiness of the room that Aiden hadn’t been there that afternoon. Or that morning. Or even the night before.
His boy was gone.
Brodie walked over to the bed. He sniffed at the cold sheets, breathed in the smell of his boy. He knew that every smell cost him a little of his shine. But he didn’t care.
“He’s not here,” Tuck said behind him. He didn’t say it like a question, or even a statement. He said it like an “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Brodie said. His nose was still on Aiden’s bed, the bed where he’d slept curled up with Aiden every night, the boy’s arms snug and warm around him until he fell asleep and they went loose. The bed where they could be safe together. The bed where Brodie would lie, sometimes, and lick the salty tears from Aiden’s face in the darkness.
“Is this him?” Tuck
asked softly from beside Brodie. He was looking at a picture in a cheap fake-silver frame on the little table by the bed. Brodie knew the picture without looking at it. It showed Aiden kneeling down, his arm around a grinning Brodie. It was from the day two summers ago when they’d driven out to the lake. Aiden was shirtless and they were both wet and dripping, with water-plastered hair and wide summer smiles. Aiden was squinting into the sunlight.
“Yeah. That’s him.”
Brodie looked over at the picture. He couldn’t talk for a minute, looking at those eyes and that face that he loved so much and missed so much.
“You’d love him, Tuck.” Brodie stepped closer, lost in the picture and the memory. “He always sneaks me food under the table. And he’s …” But then Brodie’s words stopped short. Because he saw it, there in the picture, held in his boy’s hand. Round. Yellow. The ball. That was it. The Away. And the Back.
All the memories came tied together, in one breathing, pulsing bunch.
Aiden, hurling the ball through the summertime park, cheering Brodie on as he sprinted after it.
Aiden, standing under a tree during a spring rain, laughing his Aiden laugh as Brodie slipped sloppily through the mud, bringing the ball back to him.
Aiden in the backyard, throwing the ball up onto the roof and cheering when Brodie leapt to catch it in the air when it rolled off.
Aiden, looking down at him with sparkling eyes and a ready smile, showing Brodie the ball, working him into spinning circles of excitement, desperate for the throw.
Aiden, sitting at one end of the hallway on a thunderstorm night, rolling the ball down the hall, sending Brodie into frantic scrambling to get the ball as it bounced between the walls.
Aiden, throwing the ball in sunlight and in shadow, in snow and under blue skies, across grass and mud and concrete and carpet.
Aiden.
And Brodie.
Brodie, running away. And back. Away. And Back.
This was their game. This was their rhythm.
Well. It had been their game. It had been their rhythm.
And now? Now they were stuck. Stuck in the worst place. Away.
And Brodie? Sure, he didn’t have a heart that could beat anymore. But he still had one that could sing. And one that could break.
“Brodie?” Tuck asked, his voice gentle.
“He’s bigger now,” Brodie went on. “This is from a while ago.” The picture was taken just after Aiden had lost a couple of his front teeth. Brodie looked at his big, gap-toothed grin. It was a smile that he loved. A smile that he hadn’t seen much of for a while, even before he’d died. His boy, wherever he was, didn’t do as much smiling as he used to. “He’s taller now, and when we go for walks he …”
Again, Brodie lost his voice.
Because, once again and harder than ever, it hit him. He was looking at a dusty picture from a summer day years ago. A picture of a boy who was now different. And it wasn’t a picture of a boy and his dog anymore. It was a picture of a boy and the dog he used to have. The dog who had left him.
“He looks like a fun kid, buddy.”
Brodie couldn’t tear his eyes off the picture, off that face and that smile and that arm around his body. It took a second for him to find the words, but when he did they were the truest thing he’d ever said.
“He’s the best kid in the whole world.”
Brodie sighed and dropped his head. He was going to rest his chin on the table, but it dropped right through the scratched wood.
He was dead. He was dead and his boy was gone. This was not his home anymore. This was not his world anymore. He was nothing but a dog in a picture. He was nothing but a memory.
“I don’t want to be dead, Tuck,” he said.
Tuck stepped closer to him, but didn’t say anything.
“I don’t want to be gone. I don’t want to go to Forever.”
“I know, buddy.”
“I don’t want to be anything but alive. And I don’t want to be anywhere but here. With him.” When Brodie had been alive, he’d seen Aiden cry. Plenty of times. He’d known that his boy was sad, and that had made him sad, but he hadn’t gotten the crying. He hadn’t understood how tears could come from eyes because a soul was sad. But standing there in that room with his boy gone and all the new words and understandings swirling inside him, he got it. If he’d had eyes that could cry, he would have.
“You did your best, buddy. You did everything you could. Don’t worry. You’ll be all right.”
“I don’t care about me, Tuck. I care about him. I don’t want to leave him alone. I don’t want to let him down. Not again.”
“Not again?”
Brodie didn’t say anything. He looked down at the carpet, breathing in the smell of his lost boy.
“Brodie? How did you die?”
Brodie looked up at him, looked into Tuck’s warm and worried eyes.
Then he looked away.
“Okay,” Tuck said after a moment. “Then let me tell you. Let me tell you how I died. Let me tell you why I won’t go on to Forever.”
“This oughta be good,” Patsy muttered from the doorway. Brodie had almost forgotten she was even there. “Lemme guess. Choked on a hot dog?”
Tuck ignored her.
“I didn’t have a boy. I had a girl. Emily. She was … just awesome, man. Just the greatest, you know? She ran with me. She fed me. She played with me. She named me Tuck but she called me ‘buddy’ when she was happy. And when she called me ‘buddy,’ man, I felt like the luckiest dog in the whole world. I loved her so much. You don’t even know how much I loved her.” Tuck paused. “Well, sorry. Maybe you do. But, man. That girl.” He paused again, his eyes lost in memory. When he started talking again, his voice was softer. Hollow-sounding.
“But you know me. I … I get excited. I get distracted. And I love running. It’s my most favorite thing. When I get the chance, when there’s open ground in front of me and no leash around my neck, I just can’t help myself. I forget everything else. I just have to stretch my legs and run, you know?
“It was morning. Emily went out to grab the newspaper off the front lawn. She left the door open. Just a crack. But it was enough. I nosed it open. I was just going to follow her. I swear. I was just following her. But once I got outside, I just … just lost it. The sun was shining. Birds were chirping. All those smells and sounds. You know how it is. I just … just ran. Right out of the yard, right down the sidewalk. Emily, she … she … chased me. She was yelling my name. I could hear it, hear her, I could hear the anger in her voice and then the fear. But I didn’t stop. I wasn’t running away from her, Brodie. I swear I wasn’t. I was just … running. But she kept screaming my name. My girl, my Emily. She kept calling me. Telling me to stop. And I just kept going. I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t come back to her. I was a bad dog, Brodie. A bad dog.”
Tuck’s voice faded to a whisper.
“I didn’t even see the car. I heard Emily scream. Oh, that scream. And then I heard a squeal. And then I was flying. And landing. And rolling. And bleeding. And hurting.”
Brodie whined without even meaning to. He stepped closer to his friend.
“And then Emily came running up. And I was … I was … still alive. Hurting, bad, but alive. I couldn’t move. And she was just crying and crying and petting me and crying. And people tried to pull her away and she wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t leave me. And all I could do was look at her. And I wanted so bad to stay, Brodie. So bad. I didn’t want to leave her. But it was all going black. And I knew I was going. And I couldn’t say good-bye. And I couldn’t lick her hand one more time. And I couldn’t say I was sorry. I couldn’t say I was sorry.
“The last thing I saw was her looking down at me, crying and screaming. Because I ran. Because I didn’t listen. She asked me to stay, she begged me to stay, and I ignored her. I abandoned her, Brodie.” Tuck’s last words came out shaky and ended rough. “I’ll never be able to move on from that.”
There was a sile
nce.
“Why don’t you go to her, then?” Brodie asked softly. “Why are you here with me?”
Tuck looked away.
“I … I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at her after what I did. What if she’s still crying? Or what if she hates me? Or what if she … what if she has some new dog, some new buddy, who she loves more than me? Some dog who’s good and doesn’t run away? I couldn’t handle that, Brodie. I’m not as brave as you are.”
Tuck took a slow, long breath.
“But I figure … I figure if I can help you, if I can stick by you and help you do your thing, maybe I can, I don’t know, make up for it. It’s too late for me to be a good dog for her. But maybe I can be a good dog for you.”
“Oh, Tuck,” Brodie said, wishing that he could touch him, that he could nudge him with his nose and bump him with his shoulder and do all the things that living dogs do to say I’m here and I’m your friend and We’re together.
“Oh, cry me a river.” Patsy’s voice broke the spell of Tuck’s story. Both dogs turned to look at her. “You guys are pathetic. You really gonna spend all eternity whining about this? That you had these awesome lives with people who loved you and then you died? Well, guess what. We all die. And at least you had the first part.”
Brodie took an angry step toward her.
“Why are you even here, Patsy? Really. If you don’t wanna help, if you think we’re so dumb and this whole thing is stupid, then why are you hanging around?”
“I told you, sausage-for-brains, I was bored.”
“No way,” Brodie snapped. “You wouldn’t come all this way and go through all this stuff just ’cause you were bored. There’s gotta be another reason. Tell us. What is it?”
Patsy looked at him, anger and uncertainty flashing in her eyes.
But she never got the chance to answer.
Because at that moment, a sound pierced the silence. It came from down the hall, from the front of the house.
It was the sound of the front door opening.
And then the sound of feet pounding inside.
Brodie didn’t wait. He left Tuck behind, he ran right through Patsy (ignoring her hiss), and he sprinted down the hall.
Good Dog Page 11
