My dog is scheduled to be put down today. It’s been awhile coming but the dog’s legal owner couldn’t face it until now. I’m prepared. And breathing a sigh of relief he will no longer be in pain.
Sir Nathaniel came home last night.
“Now you’ll know what it is to be abandoned.”
He was clinging to the wall above me, gloating about what the day would bring.
I looked at him passively. I understood what drove the comment. I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t mad. I was tired of playing emotional nursemaid to grown ass people.
“You can’t be abandoned by what you let go. You chained him. I only broke that chain. Tell me, how much did you pay for him, anyway? Was it worth the price?”
“You have no right…”
“Welcome home, Sirrah. You’ve already pissed me off, but it’s late, you’re still mourning, and I have shit to do elsewhere. So I’ll just remind you of Benefé’s role in your life. Slave. No matter what your fond memories of him are, at the end of the day, he was your personal entertainment. If he hadn’t died as a teen, you would have discarded him when his voice deepened and his nuts dropped.”
The temperature in the room descended as I spoke. Sir Nathaniel fidgeted in increasing agitation as I spoke. I had the appearance of calm, but I was prepared to defend myself if necessary.
“You, who enslaves the dead, dare to mock me about my errors while living?”
I didn’t move from my very comfortable position. “I have two empty trinkets, Sir Nathaniel. And a lot less quandaries about what I am becoming, and what I always have been. I also have no fucks about calling it as I see it. You weren’t abandoned. Your manipulations finally fell apart. There is now nothing between you and whatever you have used hazel-eyed boys to distract you from. My dog is not abandoning me. He’s moving on. Like Benefé finally did. Like you refuse to do.”
I pulled the blankets around me. A sudden flash of the house’s memory surrounded us. Benefé playing with my string of horn beads. When I found he was fond of them, I started leaving them out overnight. I often saw him playing with them. Counting games. I smiled at the memory. Sir Nathaniel caught his voice to see it. “Now then, you can use that maturity you claim to hold and settle down. Or you can irritate me enough to make you settle down. If I have to move from these covers…”
He said nothing. Only retreated to the far corner of the room.
No further words were said. I went to sleep and tackled my piles of plans and ideas further.
This morning, I spoke my last word to my dog. I had no tears. I was relieved the right thing was finally being done. As I stroked his face in the mimicking of a pack member’s greeting, his paw held my free hand and he had a certain peace to him. Like he knew. He rests today.
Good morning.