… I don’t know what you want to do.’
‘I want this not to be happening.’
‘Well yes. But I’m afraid it is.’
‘How long has he got?’
‘His present condition is really as good as things are going to get for him.’ She spoke as though she was reading the words from an idiot-board, careful to leave exactly the same amount of space between each one. ‘All that is really a tissue is how quickly Dempsey becomes incapacitated.’
Todd looked through the open door at the pitiful shape shuddering beneath the quilt. It was obvious that Dempsey had already reached that point. Todd could be absurdly optimistic at times, but this wasn’t one of them.
‘Is he in pain?’ he asked the doctor.
‘Well, I’d say it’s not so much pain we’re dealing with as anxiety. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him. And he doesn’t know why it’s happening. He’s just suffering, Mr Pickett. And it’s just going to get worse.’
‘So you’re saying I should have him put down?’
‘It’s not my place to tell you what to do with your dog, Mr Pickett.’
‘But if he was your dog.’
‘If he was my dog, and I loved him as you obviously love Dempsey, I wouldn’t want him suffering … Mr Pickett, are you there?’
‘Here,’ Todd said, trying to keep the sound of tears out of his voice.
‘So really it’s up to you.’
Todd looked at Dempsey again, who was making a mournful sound in his sleep.
‘If I bring him back over to the hospital?’
‘Yes?’
‘Would there be somebody there to put him to sleep?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll be here.’
‘Then that’s what I want to do.’
‘I’m so very sorry, Mr Pickett.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
Dempsey roused himself a little when Todd went back to the bed, but it was barely more than a sniff and a half-hearted wag.
‘Come on, you,’ he said, wrapping Dempsey tightly in the quilt, and lifting him up, ‘the sooner this is done the sooner you’re not an unhappy hound. Will you drive, Marco?’
It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and though the drizzle had ceased, the traffic was still horrendous. It took them fifty-five minutes to get down to the hospital, but this time – perhaps to make up for her unavailability the last time he’d been there – Dr Otis was at the counter waiting for him. She opened the side door, to let him into the non-public area.
‘You want me to come in, boss?’ Marco asked.
‘Nah, it’s okay. We’ll be fine.’
‘He looks really out of it,’ the doctor remarked.
Dempsey had barely opened his eyes at the sound of Todd’s voice. ‘You know, I realize this may seem like a strange thing to say, but in a way we’re lucky that this caught him so fast. With some dogs it takes weeks and months …’
‘In here?’ Todd said.
‘Yes.’
The doctor had opened a door into a room not more than eight by eight, painted in what was intended to be a soothing green. On one wall was a Monet reproduction and on another a piece of poetry that Todd couldn’t read through his assembling tears.
‘I’ll just give you two some time,’ Dr Otis said. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Todd sat down with Dempsey in his arms. ‘Damn,’ he said softly. ‘This isn’t fair.’
Dempsey had opened his eyes fully for the first time in several hours, probably because he’d heard the sound of Todd crying, which had always made him very attentive, even if the crying was fake. Todd could be rehearsing a sad scene from a picture, memorizing lines, and as soon as the first note of sadness crept into his voice Dempsey would be there, his paws on Todd’s knees, ready to give comfort. But this time the animal didn’t have the strength to help make the boss feel better. All he could do was stare up at Todd with a slight look of puzzlement on his face.
‘Oh God, I hope I’m doing the right thing. I wish you could just tell me that this is what you want.’ Todd kissed the dog, tears falling in Dempsey’s fur. ‘I know if I was you I wouldn’t want to be shitting everywhere and not able to stand up. That’s no life, huh?’ He buried his face in the smell of the animal. For eleven years – whether Todd had had female company or not – Dempsey had slept on his bed; and more often than not been the one to wake him up, pressing his cold nose against Todd’s face, rubbing his neck on Todd’s chest.
‘I love you, dog,’ he said. ‘And I want you to be there when I get to heaven, okay? I want you to be keeping a place for me. Will you do that? Will you keep a place for me?’
There was a discreet knock on the door, and Todd’s stomach turned. ‘Time’s up, buddy,’ he said, kissing Dempsey’s burning hot snout. Even now, he thought, I could say no, I don’t want you to do this. He could take Dempsey home for one more night in the big bed. But that was just selfishness. The dog had had enough, that was plain. He could barely raise his head. It was time to go.
‘Come in,’ he said.
The doctor came in, meeting Todd’s gaze for the first time. ‘I know how hard this is,’ she said. ‘I have dogs myself, all mutts like Dempsey.’
‘Dempsey, did you hear that?’ Todd said, the tears refusing to abate. ‘She called you a mutt.’
‘They’re the best.’
‘Yeah. They are.’
‘Are you ready?’
Todd nodded, at which point she instantly transferred her loving attention to the dog. She lifted Dempsey out from Todd’s arms and put him on the steel table in the corner of the room, talking to him all the while, ‘Hey there, Dempsey. This isn’t going to hurt at all. Just a little prick –’
She pulled a syringe out of her pocket, and exposed the needle. At the back of Todd’s head that same irrational voice was screaming: ‘Tell her no! Knock it out of her hand! Quickly! Quickly!’ He pushed the thoughts away, wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, because he didn’t want to be blinded by them when this happened. He wanted to see it all, even if it hurt like a knife.
He owed that to Dempsey. He put his hand on Dempsey’s neck and rubbed his favourite place. The syringe went into Dempsey’s leg. He made a tiny little grunt of complaint.
‘Good boy,’ Dr Otis said. ‘There. That wasn’t so bad now, was it?’
Todd kept rubbing Dempsey’s neck.
The doctor put the top back on the syringe and pocketed it. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You can stop rubbing. He’s gone.’
So quickly? Todd cleared away another wave of tears and looked down at the body on the table. Dempsey’s eye was still half-open, but it didn’t look back at him any longer. Where there’d been a sliver of bright life, where there’d been mischief and shared rituals – where, in short, there’d been Dempsey – there was nothing.
‘I’m very sorry, Mr Pickett,’ the doctor said, ‘I’m sure you loved him very much and speaking as a doctor, I know you did the right thing for him.’
Todd sniffed hard, and reached over to pluck a clump of paper handkerchiefs from the box. ‘What does