“That’s my hand on the right, and Grand’s is on the left. We made ’em years ago.” I felt my finger as I remembered the knife and shoelaces.
As he continued to stare at the prints, even placing his own over mine, I began to toss through the board games that me and Grand kept in the tree house. Me and Sal never did decide on one of those games. We got to talking about movies instead, and I found myself explaining the plot of Ghostbusters. Just when I was about to tell him about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, he shushed me.
I didn’t hear what he did, but still I followed him down the slats and continued to follow him through the woods, the dry shrubbery and briars scratching my legs. As I stopped to wipe small dots of blood off my shins, I heard the low cries. It was then I saw Elohim’s rusty can. A few feet from it lay a pile of gray.
Please, God, I prayed as I ran to her. Already I felt the tearing inside myself, and by fear alone, I knew home would never be the same again.
I fell down by her side, unsure of where to touch her, for she seemed in pain everywhere.
“Oh, Granny. Hey, old girl. How much of the poison you think she got?”
“Enough.” Sal gently fell to his knees beside me.
“What do we do?”
Her tremors became spasms that convulsed her whole body. Sal would later tell me I screamed for God. All I really remember shouting for was help.
He stood, wiping his hands on his red shorts as he walked away. I asked him where he was going, but he didn’t answer. I tried to soothe Granny by saying all would be fine as I scratched behind her ears, her favorite place. It was hard to avoid the thick saliva dribbling from her mouth. Over and over again, she jerked, and in the sharpness each jerk was the corner of so many things I just kept running into.
“Sal, where are you?” A crackle of twigs. “There you are.”
He held up the revolver.
“What you gonna do with that? Sal?”
“She’s dying, so it isn’t a killing. It’s what has to be done.”
“No.” I threw myself over her convulsing body. “She’ll be okay. She just needs to throw it up. Yeah, that’s it, throw up the poison.” I wasn’t sure how to induce vomiting in a dog, so I started to pinch her throat. The sticky saliva clung to my hand. I moved down and massaged her stomach as I pleaded with her to vomit. “Please, Granny. Just throw it up. Please.”
All she did was look up at me with the same eyes she had used to beg for table scraps. Now begging for something else.
“Why force her to suffer when you can take it all away?” He held the gun out to me.
“I can’t kill her, Sal. She’s Granny. Like a real granny.”
“You’re not going to kill her. Death has already started. You’re not initiating anything that isn’t already there. If you’re waiting for God to take care of it, He won’t. He doesn’t do that. By letting her suffer, you risk being God.
“People always ask, why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we’ll do. He’s stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering’s biggest spectator.
“Will you wait, Fielding? Will you wait to see for yourself what happens? If you’re strong enough to watch suffering without laying down the pain, then you’ve no place among men, Fielding. You are a spectator on the cusp. You are a god-in-training.” He kneeled and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
“Just give me some room.” I shrugged him off. “I need to think.”
He stood back, the gun dangling at his side as if the choice were so casual.
“Hey, old girl.” I scratched her neck, and her tail wagged as best as it could. Only a dog could show such love in such pain.
If only she could’ve told me it was okay to pick up the gun, to end her suffering. It’s having to make the decision all alone and them not being able to tell you it’s the right one. All I could see was the fear in her eyes. The fear of not knowing what was happening to her.
I thought of all the things she had planned for the rest of the day. I could see her almost saying, I’ve got to get up from here. I’ve got to go home. Watch Mom fix dinner. Beg for some table scraps. Watch Dad sit and think. Think with him. Watch my boy yawn and go to bed with him so we can get up in the morning together.
All the things she always did. Looking in her eyes, I could see these were all the things she wanted so desperately to get back to.