A Dog's Purpose Boxed Set

by W. Bruce Cameron

  It was good to be with CJ, but I was sad to think I would never see Trent again.

  “Does Gloria’s disease stir up feelings about your husband?” Fran asked gently.

  “Not really. This is so different. Besides, I always have feelings about Trent. He was the friend I could always turn to who never asked for anything for himself. I think for a long time I modeled my understanding of love based on my relationship with my mother. When I finally shook that off, Trent was waiting for me, and we had the most wonderful life together. I couldn’t have children, so it was just the two of us, but he made every day seem special. He liked to surprise me with trips—and planning a getaway when your wife needs dialysis takes some doing. But that was Trent, the most capable man I’ve ever met. He could do whatever he decided to do. Through everything that happened—and it was no picnic, with my transplant and the immunosuppressants and the trips to the emergency room—he was always my rock. Even now, I can’t really believe he’s gone.”

  “He sounds very special,” Fran said. “I would have liked to have known him.”

  From that day forward, my girl would come to visit Gloria and I would greet her at the door and stay by her side until she left. Sometimes CJ pulled treats out of her pocket and fed them to me without me having to do any tricks. “Such a good dog,” she would whisper.

  Eddie told me I was a good dog, too, and he reinforced the sentiment with meat treats!

  “‘Dog’ is ‘God’ spelled backward; you know that. That’s why you’re here, to help the nuns do God’s work. So I figure a little stew meat between us boys is the least I can give you,” Eddie said. I never knew what he was saying, but his treats were the best I’d ever had!

  Just as I had once watched the baby Clarity for Ethan, I now reasoned that it was my job to take care of Gloria for CJ. I spent a lot of time in Gloria’s room even when CJ wasn’t there with her. I didn’t try to jump on Gloria’s bed, though, because the one time I tried it her eyes were filled with terror and she screamed at me.

  Some people just don’t appreciate having a dog around. It’s sad to think there are people like that. I knew Gloria was that way—maybe that’s why she could never be truly happy.

  Fran and CJ became friends and often ate lunch together out in the courtyard. I would lie at their feet and watch for falling crumbs.

  Falling crumbs were my specialty.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” CJ told Fran at one of these lunches, “but I want you to think about it before answering.”

  “That’s exactly what my husband said to me when he proposed,” Fran replied. They both laughed.

  I wagged at CJ’s laughter. She seemed to have so many sharp pains digging at her from inside; I could sense them from the way she’d start and gasp when she moved, or when she exhaled in a long, loud sigh as she carefully sat down. Any time she laughed, though, the pain seemed to retreat.

  “Well, it’s not that kind of proposal,” CJ said. “What I’m thinking is that I’d like to work here at the hospice. In counseling, I mean. I see how hard it is for you and Patsy and Mona to keep up—and I’d volunteer. I really don’t need money.”

  “What about your current practice?”

  “I’ve been winding that down for a long time—I only work as a consultant now as it is. To tell you the truth, I’m finding it harder and harder to relate to teenagers—or maybe it’s the other way around. I tell them I identify with what they are going through and I see the skepticism in their eyes—to them, there’s little difference between being in your seventies and being a hundred years old.”

  “We normally discourage any volunteer relationships with the hospice by family members until a year after the guest has passed.”

  “I know; you said that. That’s why I want you to think about it—I believe an exception could be made for me. I know very, very well what it’s like to lie in bed and feel horrible—I do it three times a week. And certainly what I’m going through with Gloria gives me tremendous insight into how families feel.”

  “How is your mother?”

  “She’s … It won’t be much longer.”

  “You’ve been a good daughter, CJ.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe under the circumstances. Not sure Gloria will agree, or would ever have agreed. So will you think about it?”

  “Of course. I’ll talk to the director and to the nuns about it, too. It’s really up to them, you know. The rest of us are just employees.”

  About a week after that, I was sitting at CJ’s feet in Gloria’s room when I felt a change come over Gloria. I could hear that her breathing was getting lighter and lighter, and then it would stop, and then she’d take a couple of deep breaths. With each cycle, though, the breathing was weaker, the exhalations more gentle.

  She was passing.

  I jumped up on the chair next to her and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, her hands clutched across her chest. I glanced back at CJ, who was asleep. I knew she would want to be awake, so I barked, a single, sharp yip that sounded very loud in the silent room.

  My girl awoke with a start. “What is it, Toby?” She stood and came over to stand beside me. I lifted my nose and licked her fingers. “Oh,” she said. After a moment, she reached down and clutched Gloria’s hand in hers. I saw tears falling from her eyes and could feel the sad pain in her. We stood like that for several minutes.

  “Good-bye, Mom,” CJ finally said. “I love you.”

  When Gloria took her last breath and faded away, CJ went back to her chair and sat down. I jumped into her lap and curled up and she held me, rocking softly. I did what I could for her, being with her as she grieved.

  At the end of that day, I walked with CJ and Fran to the front doors.

  “I’ll see you at the service,” Fran said. They hugged. “Are you sure you’re okay to go home alone?”

  “I’m okay. To tell you the truth, it’s actually a relief to have it over with.”

  “I know.”

  CJ looked down at me and I wagged. She knelt, wincing a little as she did so, then gathered me to her.

  “You’re such an amazing dog, Toby. What you do for everyone, comforting them and guiding them at the end—you’re just a miracle, an angel dog.”

  I wagged—“angel dog” was something like “doodle dog,” another name that meant I was good and I was loved.

  “Thank you so, so much, Toby. You be a good dog. I love you.”

  CJ stood, smiled at Fran, and walked out into the night.

  CJ didn’t come back the next day, nor the next. More days went by, until I no longer rushed over to the sliding doors when they gasped open—my girl, it seemed, didn’t need me right now.

  That was just how things were. I would rather have gone with CJ wherever she was, but my job now was to take care of and love everyone in my building and to be with people as they left this life. And also to Sit for Eddie so that he would feed me chicken.

  I knew that if CJ needed me, she could find me, just as she always had done before.

  In the meantime, all I could do was wait.

  THIRTY-ONE

  And then one day, when the brown leaves outside scuttled before the wind so loudly I could hear them from everywhere in the building, my girl walked in the door. I was wary as she came up the sidewalk because I wasn’t sure it was her—there was an odd hitch to her walk, a limp, and the bulky coat across her shoulders hid her frail thinness. But when the door whooshed open and the blustery wind blew her wonderful scent into my face I scampered across the floor and right up to her. I was careful not to jump up, fearing I might knock her over, but my tail wagged with joy and I closed my eyes when her hand came down to stroke me.

  “Hello, Toby, did you miss me?”

  Fran walked up and embraced her and CJ put some things on a desk in one of the rooms, and from that day forward we lived life backward from the way we had always lived it before. Now CJ left at night and didn’t return until morning, instead of leaving in the morn
ing and not coming back until night. She never took me to the room with the couches, but I could smell that she was still going there on a regular basis.

  CJ moved through the building, visiting people in the rooms and talking to them and sometimes hugging them. I was always at her heels, but when she left at night there was often someone who needed me on their bed, so I would lie there with them, and sometimes their family members would hold me.

  People were often in pain when they talked to CJ, whether they were lying in bed or standing next to it, but usually after a quiet conversation I could feel their pain lessen a little. Often someone in the family would reach for me, and it was my job to let them hug me for as long and as hard as they needed to, even if it made me uncomfortable.

  “Good dog,” CJ would say. “Good dog, Toby.”

  Often Fran or Patsy would be in the room with CJ, and they said the same thing. “Good dog, Toby.”

  I was glad to be a good dog.

  CJ was in pain, too—I could sense it, could see how it slowed her down. Hugging me made her feel a little better, too.

  One family was very sad because a woman who was lying in bed was suffering and had a strong metallic tang to her breath. There was a man her age and three children who were the age CJ had been when I was Molly. When one of the children picked me up and put me in bed with the woman I did Be Still.

  “Dawn,” CJ said to the oldest of these children, a girl taller than CJ and with long, light hair that smelled of flowery soap and whose hands carried with them the strong scent of apples. “Would you join me for a cup of coffee?”

  I felt some alarm go through Dawn. She looked at her mother, who was sleeping, unaware of my presence next to her, then up at the man, her father, who nodded. “Go ahead, honey.”

  I could feel something like guilt stirring in Dawn as she reluctantly left her mother’s side. I decided that whatever was happening, CJ needed me more to be with her and Dawn than with the woman in the bed. Moving as carefully as possible, I eased onto the floor and silently padded down the hall after my girl.

  “Hey, you want something to eat? A banana, maybe?” CJ asked.

  “Sure,” the girl said. I soon smelled the pungent, sweet smell of a new fruit mingling with the apples on the girl’s hands as they made chewing noises. I lay down at their feet under the table.

  “It must be hard to be the oldest. Your sisters look up to you; I can tell,” CJ said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “How’s your dad doing?”

  “He’s … I don’t know. He keeps saying we have to fight. But Mom…”

  “She’s not fighting anymore,” CJ said softly after a moment.

  “Yeah.”

  “Must be very stressful.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They sat for a little while.

  “What are your comfort foods?” CJ asked.

  “Peanut butter,” Dawn replied with a wry laugh. “Oh, and you know those lasagnas you can heat up?”

  “Eating helps with the stress,” CJ said.

  Dawn was quiet.

  “And then when you’ve eaten too much?” CJ asked quietly.

  A jolt of alarm went through Dawn. She sat up in her chair. “What do you mean?”

  “When I was in high school I had this problem. I could always make myself feel better by eating,” CJ said. “But with every bite I’d be hating myself because I already felt fat and I knew I was just putting on pounds—I could practically feel my butt getting bigger. So then I got rid of what I ate.”

  When Dawn spoke I could hear the tremor her heartbeat put in her voice. “How?”

  “You know how, Dawn,” CJ replied.

  Dawn inhaled sharply.

  “My eyes had little bits of blood in them all the time. Just like yours,” CJ said. “Sometimes my cheeks were as swollen as yours, too.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Sit with me for just a bit longer, would you?” CJ asked.

  Dawn shuffled her feet. I could tell that she was afraid.

  “These aren’t my own teeth, you know,” CJ continued. “I lost them when I was young, from all the acidity—people my age often have implants, but I had them in college.”

  “Are you going to tell my dad?” Dawn asked.

  “Does your mom know?” CJ replied.

  “She … I think she does, but she never said anything to me. And now…”

  “I know. Dawn, there’s a program.…”

  “No!” Dawn said sharply. She pushed her chair back from the table.

  “I know how you feel. How awful it is to have this secret, how it can make you hate yourself.”

  “I want to get back to my mother’s room.”

  They both stood. I eased to my feet, yawning anxiously. CJ was not as tense as Dawn, but strong feelings were running through both of them.

  “I’m on your side, Dawn,” CJ said. “In the coming days and weeks, any time you feel that urge, that uncontrollable need, I want you to call me. Will you do that?”

  “Will you promise not to tell my dad?”

  “Only if I know for sure you’re not going to hurt yourself, honey.”

  “Then you’re not on my side,” Dawn blurted. She turned and walked away much more rapidly than my girl could move.

  My girl sighed sadly, and I nudged her with my hand. “Good dog, Toby,” she said, but she wasn’t really paying attention to me.

  I was lying next to Dawn’s mother when she died, and they were all very sad and the children clutched me and I did Be Still for them. Fran and Patsy were there, but CJ was not. Often, even if CJ was in the building, I would be with Fran or Patsy because they would need me more.

  It was a good way to pass the years. There was no dog door, but whenever I walked up to the door to the small yard it would swish open for me, and the smells out there told me when it was going to snow or rain and when it was summer and when it was fall. Chaucer still came to play on a regular basis, though once he learned Eddie could be counted on for treats we spent almost as much time in the kitchen as we did out in the yard.

  “Now Chaucer, you’re like me, you work hard, but it’s not fancy work. Nobody looks at you and sees anything but a hardworking dog,” Eddie said one time. Chaucer whined a little and shuffled his feet, impatient for the treat. “But Toby here, he’s a doctor. Neither one of us will ever be smart as Toby.”

  I wagged at my name. Chaucer licked his lips.

  “You both get bacon today, though.”

  I could hardly contain myself. Bacon!

  Sometimes CJ would be gone for a week or two at a time, but she always came back. One day at lunch, shortly after one of her long absences, I could feel that CJ was a little afraid as she talked to Fran, so I sat up alertly.

  “We have a new guest coming in. Probably as early as Monday,” CJ said.

  “Oh?” Fran said.

  “Me. I’m the guest.”

  “What?”

  “It’s almost a blessing, Fran. There are so many things going wrong with me now the doctors almost don’t know where to start. And to tell you the truth, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of all the pain and the sleeplessness and the sickness. I’m tired of the forty pills a day. When Gloria died I realized that it meant my obligations were over. I don’t owe anybody anything.”

  “CJ…”

  CJ shifted in her seat, leaning forward. “This is a decision I reached a long, long time ago, Fran. You won’t be able to talk me out of it. At my family reunion I told everyone and said my good-byes. My affairs are in order.” CJ gave a little laugh. “This way, I will always and forever be younger than Gloria. That will drive her crazy.”

  “I think we should talk about this. Maybe you could see someone.…”

  “I’ve worked it through with my therapist. Believe me, we’ve spoken about almost nothing else for the past year and a half.”

  “I still think—”

&nbs
p; “I know what you think, but you’re wrong. This isn’t suicide; it’s acceptance. My doctors say it’s only a matter of time before something else happens inside me. They agree with my decision. I’m terrified another stroke might leave me debilitated—after watching Gloria I can’t face the idea of something like that happening to my brain. This way, I control what happens, and where and when. Isn’t that what hospice is all about? Ensuring that quality of life extends into the dying process?”

  “You can’t know, though, that you’ll have another stroke.”

  “Fran. I’ve stopped dialysis.”

  “Oh God.”

  “No, you have no idea. The freedom. I don’t have to go back there ever again. I have had my ups and downs, but it has been a good, long life and I don’t regret my decision. Please, try to understand. It feels to me like I’ve been kept artificially alive, and maybe for a good reason—I’ve helped a lot of people. But the prognosis is for it all to end badly. I want my leaving to be at a time of my choosing and not artificially extended, with no regard for my quality of life. I don’t want to end up a vegetable.”

  The fear was gone from CJ now. I nuzzled her hand and she stroked me with tenderness.

  A few days later, CJ came to the building to live. Right away, though, I could tell that she was feeling more ill than ever before. I jumped up on her bed and remained there with her, sometimes climbing up to be by her head, sometimes curling up in a ball by her feet.

  “Good dog, Toby,” she always said. Her voice, though, was weaker and weaker. “You’re not just a therapeagle; you’re an angel dog, just like Max, just like Molly.”

  I wagged, hearing those names spoken so tenderly. My girl knew who I was, that I had always been with her, taking care of her and guarding against dangers.

  Many people came to visit CJ in her room, and CJ was always happy to see them. Some of them I knew, such as Gracie, who had been a little girl when I was Max but was now a grown woman with children of her own. CJ kissed all the children and laughed and the pain inside her receded until it was all but hidden. Another was a woman I recognized from not long ago. Her name was Dawn, the girl with the apple-scented hands, and she sat next to CJ and talked for hours. I left for a while to check to see if Fran or Patsy needed me, but when I came back Dawn was still there.