I moved my hand in slow circles on Brodie’s back.
“His dad is going to jail. And while he’s there, he’ll lie awake every night thinking about the growling ghost of the dog that he murdered, standing between him and his boy. He doesn’t have a hero’s heart, Brodie. He has a coward’s courage. That man is never gonna bother this boy again.”
Brodie lay, looking up at his boy’s face.
“Will I ever see him again?”
“Yes. Yes, Brodie. You’ll see him again. I promise.”
“I love him. I love him so much.”
“I know.”
“This … Forever. Is it far?”
I looked at Brodie, lying with his boy. Held tight by love.
“No. You’re not far at all, Brodie. In fact, right now, you are so close to Forever. We don’t even need to leave. We can just go deeper into right here, deeper into this, and we’ll be there.” I scratched with my fingers behind Brodie’s ears. “You are a good dog, Brodie. Such a good dog.”
“Will he ever forget me?”
I leaned down, close to that good, good dog and the boy who he loved. There was the faint shadow of a bruise on the boy’s eye, but there was also the faint shadow of a smile on his sleeping lips. In the morning, I knew, the boy would have the dream of a memory. Or the memory of a dream. Of hugging his lost dog in the dark middle of the night. And it would feel so real that he would know, in his deepest most innermost parts, that it was real. And he would go outside. And he would find, on the sidewalk, paw prints in the snow. Impossible paw prints that came from nowhere, and disappeared to nowhere. The boy would see those prints. And the boy would smile. He would smile through tears, maybe, but a smile through tears still counts as a smile. In fact, it counts as one even more.
“No. This boy will never forget you, Brodie,” I whispered. “I promise. Even dying won’t make him forget his dog. Believe me.”
I stood up, keeping my hand on Brodie. I could feel him slipping. I couldn’t hold him forever. It was time to go.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“I’ll never be ready,” he answered.
“I know. Are you ready?”
“I’ll never be ready.”
“I know. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
And then we were gone.
“Man, I thought you’d never get here! I’ve been waiting forever, buddy!”
Tuck’s tail was all wag. His eyes were all shine. He danced around his friend.
Brodie wagged back. He smiled his doggy smile at Tuck.
“Did you … did you … ?” Tuck tried to ask.
“I did,” Brodie laughed.
“And was he … was he … ?”
“He was, Tuck. He is.”
Tuck danced. He ran three circles around Brodie. He leapt in the air.
“I knew you’d find him, buddy! I knew you would!”
Suddenly, he stopped running. He stood, almost still. His eyes looked into Brodie’s, serious and questioning.
“So … does this mean you’re ready?”
Brodie looked away. He looked at the dogs running through the grass, the dogs splashing through the water. The blue sky. He thought of that last moment, lying with his boy. He thought of the promises that the angel who wasn’t really an angel had made him. Then he looked back to Tuck.
“Yeah. I’m ready. You?”
Tuck’s tail went back to wagging.
“You know what? I am. I actually am. I was just waiting for you, buddy.”
So those two dogs, those two solid souls, sat side by side right there in the grass. Shoulder to shoulder. They looked up into the sky, and beyond it. Both their tails were wagging.
“Are you afraid, Tuck?”
“Not even a little bit. You?”
“Nope.”
Above them, there was a glowing. A golden beam of light stretched toward them. A glittering path of lights sparkled. Far away at first, then coming closer.
Brodie shook. But not with fear.
There was a tingling as the lights reached them, a warming and a humming.
“What do you think it’ll be like, Brodie?” Tuck asked. “What do you think it’ll be like, there?”
“I think it’ll be like running, buddy,” Brodie answered. “Only even better.”
Tuck looked at Brodie and flashed his wide-mouthed, floppy-eared grin.
“You think Patsy will be there?”
Brodie’s tail slapped at the grass.
“Yeah, Tuck. Eventually. Yeah, I do.”
“Oh. Shoot,” Tuck said, but he was still grinning and wagging. “Maybe I don’t wanna go after all, then.”
And then the light was all around them. There was no more time for words. There was no more need for words. Believe me.
There was a silence.
There was a song.
There was a rising.
And there was a moving Away.
And a coming Back.
DAN GEMEINHART is the author of several acclaimed books for young readers. His first novel, The Honest Truth, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection and an Indie Next List selection. Some Kind of Courage was a finalist for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, and Scar Island was an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month. A former teacher-librarian, he lives with his wife and three daughters in Washington State. Visit him at www.dangemeinhart.com.
Copyright © 2018 by Dan Gemeinhart
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, April 2018
Cover design by Nina Goffi
Cover art ©: RyanJLane/Getty Images
e-ISBN 978-1-338-05390-6
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