Tiffany McDaniel - The Summer That Melted Everything

“Well,” Dad sighed, “don’t be gone too long.”

We went out the back door, and once we were through the yard and into the woods, I told Sal the sheriff wanted to see him.

“What about?”

“They think you’ve been kidnapped.”

“By you guys?”

“Naw, by kidnappers. Were you?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding. Don’t be so serious, Fielding.”

With a smile he took off, his head start giving him a lead we traded to the tree house. Granny followed, staying to sniff the trees below as we climbed up the slats into the house.

“This ain’t good racin’ weather.” I swept back the strands of hair stuck to my forehead.

“What are these?” He was over by the pair of handprints on the wall.

“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.

I hated the way she looked at me as she lay there. Out of all the world, she looked at me, and I wanted to say, Look at the trees. It’s the last time. Look at the sky. It’s the last time. Look there, at that ant crawl the grass blade. It will be the last time you see it. That you see any of this.

There was something about her eyes that made me see her death as final. There was no place after, her tears said. This was it. Dying animals have that effect. I think because you never see them in church preparing for an afterlife. You never see them wearing crosses around their necks, or lighting candles in Mass. It all seems so final with them. Their dying is not moving on, it’s going out.

I wiped my eyes with my fists before asking for the gun. Sal didn’t say anything. Just placed it in my hand. I wasn’t sure if distance mattered. I placed the end of the barrel at the side of her trembling skull, beneath her ear, just in case it did.

My hand was surprisingly still. Though I don’t know how.

I could no longer breathe through my stuffed nose, so I drew in deep breaths through my mouth. I looked at Sal, so prepared. I hated him for not crying. I closed my eyes and lightly felt the trigger, its slight curve like a smooth tooth, a fang, ready to bite. I flexed my hand. I needed all my muscle. The gun was the heaviest thing I’d ever held up to that point in my life.

When Granny started to whimper, I threw the gun down and ran. It felt like the only thing I could do. On the way, I tripped over the can and spilled the poison. Even with that, I kept running before stopping by a tree. The sound of the gun made me.

As if I’d been shot myself, I fell to the ground, curling up into myself. I closed my eyes and rocked as I sang an old song Mom sang to me over the cradle.

Down in the hills of Ohio,

there’s a babe at sleep tonight.

He’ll wake in the morn’ of Ohio,

in the peaceful, golden light.

“Fielding?”

I opened my eyes to Sal standing over me, the gun held by the smoking barrel in his hand. “She’s still now. Like water healed of its ripples. She’s calm and at peace.”

“I couldn’t do it, Sal.”

“It’s all right, Fielding.” He sat down beside me. I heard the gun plop off to the ground on the other side of him.