Church of the Dog (14 page)

When she returns, he presents her with the small shiny red package. She’s genuinely surprised. “Oh, Earl. How did you pull this off?” She looks at me.

“Don’t look at me,” I say. “This was all him.”

“I planned ahead,” he says.

She unwraps the paper so slowly that I know she must be very aware that this is the last gift from him she’ll ever receive. She opens the small cardboard box to reveal a little velvet box and blinks back tears. She opens the velvet box and stares at the diamond ring for a moment before she puts it on next to her wedding band. “Oh, Earl,” she says through tears, “oh, Earl.” She kisses him on the lips, and he wraps his arms around her.

“Merry Christmas, beloved Edith,” he says. And it hits me. It hits me hard. She is about to lose him, and he’s about to leave her—and still they love hard, they love big. They love each other with everything they have. And if they can love like this under these circumstances, what’s my excuse? “I’ve got something for you, too, boy,” he says, and he reaches into his nightstand drawer and pulls out a gold pocket watch. “It was my father’s,” he says. “It still works. Don’t get it wet.”

“Thank you, Grandpa,” I say as I study it in disbelief. I wasn’t allowed to even touch it as a child. “I promise I’ll take good care of it.”

“I know you will,” he says. I lean over to give him a little hug, too.

“I have a little something for you, too,” I say. During Mara’s last dance lesson with Grandpa, I snapped a few pictures, and then when my grandparents thought I had gone to bed, I snuck down and shot two more. It was the first one that was a keeper. They are looking deep into each other’s eyes as they dance. Grandma has dried roses in her hair. It’s the passion, though, the passion on their faces, the passion in their eyes that makes the photograph. I met Mara after school one day and printed it with the ancient photography equipment in the old art room where she works. I blew it up as big as I could, eighteen by twenty-four, and I spared no expense to frame it right. I slip back to my bedroom and pull it out from under my bed without ripping the wrapping paper. I carry it back to them, hopeful that they’ll love it as much as I do. I hold it up next to Grandpa. “Open it together,” I say.

Grandma reaches over, looks at Grandpa, and asks, “Ready?”

“On your mark, get set, go!” he says, and they tear into it like little kids.

And then they look at it. I study their faces carefully for approval, but instead I see their hearts break. Grandma touches it tenderly. “Daniel, we’re speechless,” she finally says. “This is a beautiful, beautiful gift.”

Grandpa’s chin quivers, and he blinks rapidly to fight back more tears. “Look how beautiful your grandmother is. How did a chump like me ever get so lucky?”

“Put it there,” Grandma instructs me. “Put it right there so we can look at it.” I set it on the dresser and lean it up against the wall, just like she asked.

“I have a little surprise for the two of you, too,” she says, “but it’s an experience rather than a thing. Daniel, will you help me with this?” She leads the way to the door we never open, to my father’s childhood bedroom. On the floor near the door is an old projector, which I pick up, and a box containing reels of film, which she picks up. We carry them back to their bedroom. “Put it on that chair, will you?” She takes some pictures and a mirror off the wall and sets them on the dresser, plugs in the projector, and loads the first strip of film. I had no idea these existed. I turn off the lights and watch with them.

We watch reel after reel of Christmases past, most of them before I was born, and two after I was. For two hours I watch my father as a child, running around the yard, riding a horse, playing with an old dog, unwrapping a rifle, getting ready for graduation in his cap and gown, and riding bulls just like me. In the flickering light I see my grandmother weep as she watches, while my grandfather shakes his head slowly, sadly, except for brief moments when something my father did still makes him smile.

I see my father grow up, his life begun and almost over so quickly, and I see my grandparents starting around my age mature until they become grandparents. I glance over at them again. Their wrinkled faces are even more dramatic in the flickering light. It’s over so quickly, I think. It’s all over so quickly.

I see both my father and my mom get out of that old green pickup, my father with an armload of presents and my mother carrying me, and Grandma runs to hug them and greet them. Look how happy we were, all five of us, all five of us together for that brief moment in time. As each year of my life passes, the fraction of my life when we were all together dwindles— one-half, one-third, three-eighths, and in four more years, just a quarter.

I watch myself stick my hands in my first birthday cake. Everyone laughs. I can see how much they all love me. I can see how it was supposed to be. And then tears stream steadily down my face. I wish I could touch their image on the wall and touch them. I wish I could hear their voices. I wish I could feel them hug me. All of it overwhelms me like a surge of water so big that it could crumble anything in its path.

And then I feel my grandmother’s hand on my back. She knows. She feels it, too. In my peripheral vision I see flickering light reflect on their tears, too. Grandma takes my hand in her right and Grandpa’s in her left, transforming us from three dammed-up reservoirs into one free-flowing river.

On New Year’s Day I stop in the hallway with a glass in my hand to watch my grandparents for a moment. Grandpa’s breathing is clearly an effort. His lumps are huge. He shuts his eyes tightly. The pain is evident on his face.

Grandma holds his head up and tries to bring a straw to his lips so he can sip some water. “There you go,” she says gently.

Grandpa takes a few sips, releases the straw, and turns his head. Grandma sets his head down.

I speak up. “Hey, Grandpa. Mara made you this. Some kind of juice. Has ginger in it. Says it will help your stomach and help the inflammation in your neck. Smells good.”

Grandpa looks at me with a pained expression. I walk over, sit in a nearby chair, and hand the juice to Grandma, who offers it to Grandpa. He winces and turns his head away from the straw. Grandma sets the juice down on the bedside table. Grandpa looks toward the window and back at me. I know what he’s thinking.

“I bought one of those solar-powered trough heaters so the livestock water won’t freeze anymore,” I say.

He nods.

“I’m taking good care of everything,” I assure him.

He nods again. Grandma looks at me with appreciation, knowing it’s hard for Grandpa not to worry about the ranch.

“Doc Anderson called. He’s coming out today to give you something for the pain.”

Grandpa nods again, and a couple tears escape. He turns his head away so I won’t see.

“Okay, Grandpa. I’m here for you.” I give his hand a squeeze. He continues to look away as more tears break through his dam.

I get in the pickup with the hopper on it that doles out up to one ton of high-protein range cubes. Grandpa has it all figured out so that each animal should get two pounds. The hopper has a calculator attached to it that counts the revolutions. Each revolution distributes four pounds.

First, I go out to the two-year-olds. We keep them within a half mile of the barn so we can get to them easily when they calve. Two-year-olds have smaller bodies. It’s not uncommon for a calf’s head or shoulders to get stuck when the two-year-olds calve for the first time. Sometimes two-year-olds have their baby and are scared of it. They want to love it, but they don’t know what to do. I open the gate and drive in. They see me and start to gather. I hit the gas and outrun them. They chase me and string out so that when I turn around and drive back toward them, dropping pounds of cake, they’re nice and spread out so they can get their share. I check the counter. Fifty-four revolutions for two hundred head. Very close.

Next, I go to the pasture with the three-year-olds. They’re still growing, and they shed their teeth this year. Grandpa doesn’t put them in with the older herd just yet because the boss cows who have a little age on them fight off the young, timid ones. As the three-year-olds’ permanent teeth come in, they sure don’t need to be competing with boss cows for food. My counter is up to 106 revolutions. I’m right on target.

The older herd is divided into two groups. Grandpa doesn’t like to have more than four hundred head or so in a group. These older heifers are the farthest out. They are pros at calving. Grandpa keeps them until they drop since they are the best moms. Every year, though, he culls one-fourth of the herd, and there’s always some older ones in that group. Their teeth eventually get worn down to nothing, or sometimes they just disappear. You gotta have good teeth to make it through a winter. I feed them and return to the barn to refill the hopper.

Then I go to the bulls. We’ve got about 270 bulls now, one bull for every 20 cows or so, plus a couple extra. They fight each other and get hurt. We always cull the older bulls. By the time they are seven or eight, their libido has gone down. They often have a crippled knee or shoulder that keeps them from traveling to breed cows. The younger bulls are a force to be reckoned with. They’re dangerous. Some of those two-year-old bulls can breed 40 cows a year. We put the yearling bulls with the yearling cows so they can all figure it out together.

I feed the yearling heifers last, since they get a few extras to get some size on them.

Then I load hay onto the truck we use to distribute it and make the same rounds with it.

Grandma and Grandpa need me here. I wish they didn’t, but they do. Even though Mara will be back tomorrow, she can’t do all this all winter and teach. Maybe Grandma will sell the ranch after Grandpa passes. I don’t know how it will all work out, but they took me in when I needed help, and now it’s my turn to help them. I go home and call the captain to tell him I won’t be able to be on his snow crab crew. I tell him that I’ll check in with him in April to let him know if I can make it for another salmon season, but that I’m hopeful I will. Most of calving will happen in March. In May, though, branding, castration, and vaccinations need to be done. How will they pull that off? Maybe Grandma could hire a crew for that. It only takes about three days. And in the summer I think Grandma and Mara can handle the silage with a little help from Whitey.

There’s got to be a way. I really don’t want to stay here.

In my dream, I’m a deer this time. I walk through the door at the back of the McRae house, walk up the stairs, and turn into a woman. I’m wearing the buckskin angel wings I received from my Angel, the ones with the fringe at the bottom and some eagle feathers tied to a few strands of fringe. I don’t know what Earl will think of my wings, so I wrap them around me when I talk to Earl so he’ll think they are a hippie shawl instead.

I watch Earl sleep. He’s having trouble getting air because that lump is pushing on his larynx. The expression on his sleeping face is not one of rest but of pain.

“Earl,” I say gently. He comes out of his deep sleep and into the spiritual REM with me. “Earl, how are you doing?”

“I want to go Home,” he replies, tired.

“Want me to take you there?” I volunteer.

“Yup.”

“Should we invite Edith so she knows how to find you?”

“I think that’d be nice,” he says like I’m an idiot for asking such an obvious question.

“Edith,” I say, “Earl’s ready to go Home now. Would you like to go with me to drop him off so you know where he is?”

She nods, and with that the three of us float up, up into the sky. When we get to the level where we feel our spirits expand and become part of everything, I know we are very close. We expand into the source of all love and ascend even higher. Here, a soul is filled with immense peace. I hope this helps Edith let go. Even though we’re not quite there yet, we can smell roses, and Edith and Earl seem to be savoring it. Earl’s celestial guardians come down to show him the rest of the way Home, so he stops us and gives us a look that says go on back now.

Edith and I stop while he continues to ascend with his guardians; but before he is out of sight, he turns and blows Edith a kiss.

Edith squeezes my hand as she watches Earl float out of sight. She doesn’t want to return to the ranch, but we both know it’s not her time. I carry Edith back to her bed to finish her sleep, hoping she will remember the peace she felt near Heaven.

His silence woke me.

I roll over and face him, then touch his face. It’s neither warm nor cold. It’s something in between, which feels appropriate, like the transition it is. Something in between, like my acceptance of the situation.

I can smell that in the moments following his soul’s departure, his body had soiled the bed. I wish I could lie here with his body and say my good-byes, but the smell repels me and I get up. I’m not ready to walk away, though, so I sit in the chair next to the bed. I sit and just stare at him. I stare at his eyebrows that had grown longer over the years. I stare at all the ways he had changed over the years and at the ways he had stayed the same. He always had a strong jaw. I liked that strong jaw. I study the wrinkles in his face and try to read them like a story—our story. And though I know our story had a happy ending, I wish I could read more evidence that it had been a happier story in general. I see pain. I see contentment. I see determination. I always admired that about him—his determination.

I stare at his body like it is my own, and I stare at his body like it is foreign. I know his body perhaps better than my own, and yet with his spirit gone, his body begins to look strangely unfamiliar to me. It looks like a house I used to live in but don’t anymore: vacant but familiar. The floor plan is known so well that I could walk it in the dark, but all the things that made it mine are missing.

I know I am supposed to call someone, but I’m not ready for them to come and invade the sacred space I shared with Earl. I am not ready for them to invade Earl’s sacred body like it was a broken car. I know it is just his body, but I loved that body. I still do. I’ve loved it for sixty years, and once they take it away, I won’t ever see it again. I won’t ever see him again. And in the same breath I know this isn’t Earl anymore.