J. Lennon - See You in Paradise

In answer she moves to the table and lays Bounder upon the brilliant sheet. Another yip as he settles, and then a sigh. He closes his swollen eyes and assumes the work of drawing breath.

“Please,” she says, “hurry.”

The vet looks around, a smirk playing at the corners of his eyes. For him, it is already over, and he is telling the story to his friends at their favorite bar. Let him! she thinks, and she nods at the supine dog. He approaches, sets down his box.

“This the dog?” he says.

Someone unforgivably snickers. “Yes,” says Ellen.

It doesn’t take long for him to prepare. The syringe is produced, uncapped, and filled with medicine. She ought to look around at her friends, but instead closes her eyes. She has prepared a speech, but it slips her mind. She is disappointing herself. The sounds of the children playing outside fill the room. Now someone (same someone?) catches her breath and lets out a sob, and from elsewhere in the room comes another, and another. Some of the sobs are her own. A hand has found her shoulder. It is Ray’s.

“I’m sorry,” he says, helplessly, and she leans into him.

“Hold your pet, please,” the vet tells her, compassionate suddenly, and she falls to her knees, and Ray joins her there. It is just like their wedding. Her knees had hurt for days; the vows seemed to go on forever. Sometimes it seems like they still are. She and Ray lean over Bounder and take him into their arms. She tries looking in the dog’s eyes, but like Ray’s, they are shut.

“Don’t worry, poochy,” says the vet, “this won’t hurt a bit.”

I’m grateful to everyone who helped me revise and publish these (and other) stories over the past fifteen years. These people include, first and foremost, Rhian Ellis, but also Jennifer Barber, Ira Glass and Starlee Kine, Brian Hall, Bill Kittredge, Ian Jack, Michael Koch, Cressida Leyshon, Amy Grace Lloyd, Halimah Marcus, Fiona McCrae, Ben Metcalf, Ethan Nosowsky, Ann Patchett, Jim Rutman, Ben Samuel, Denise Shannon, Ed Skoog, Ann Vandermeer, Matt Weiland, and Virginia Zech. Finally, I want to thank everyone at Graywolf Press for valuing short fiction in general and mine in particular. I’ve never been treated better by anyone in my life.

J. Robert Lennon is the author of seven novels, including Familiar, Castle , and Mailman , and one previous story collection, Pieces for the Left Hand. His fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s, Playboy , and the New Yorker. He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches writing at Cornell University.