I set the phone on my nightstand and pulled the blanket up to my neck. Birdie was resting horizontally across Emery’s empty side, her head inches from my pillow. She made a noise and I turned toward her. All she wanted was my attention. She now had it. My heavy hand dropped onto her back and as I moved it toward her face, I scratched each spot I passed.
It didn’t matter if I was hit with a tremor, if my hand shook, or my arm felt too weak to hold up—Birdie didn’t call me out on any of it. With her, I didn’t have to wear a mask. I could tell her all the things I was scared of. The things I didn’t tell Bay because a person could only handle so much, and I’d given her enough.
As though Birdie felt my relief tonight, she leaned forward and swiped a kiss across my lips.
“Somehow,” I told her, “it’s going to be all right.”
My dog knew something was happening inside of me. She knew the minute I did, when the symptoms were more than just sympathy shakes I felt every time I left my father. Now, whenever I was home, she wouldn’t leave my side.
She put her face in front of mine and rested it there. Every few breaths, she touched her nose to my cheek. It was cold, wet, leaving a dampness behind.
I moved my fingers right behind her ears, rubbing her favorite spot. “I’m not going to tell them, Birdie.” It was all I’d thought about since I’d been diagnosed. Dad wasn’t going to make it much longer. My family was already practically living at the hospital. The sadness between all of us was already far too thick.
I couldn’t destroy them. Not again. Not like this and not this soon.
So, I refused to do it.
Birdie rubbed her nose around my cheek, smelling, licking the small tear at the corner of my eye.
“I know it’s wrong,” I told her. “But I can’t.” When I took a breath, my throat tightened. It wasn’t just from emotion. This was the new normal. “Because I won’t be their burden.” Pain shot through the middle of my chest. It was as sharp as the blade of a machete, slicing me right in half. I wasn’t going to survive this, but I would do what I needed to do for them. The before Jesse wouldn’t have understood this, but the after admitted the hardest thing I had ever said, “Because I don’t want my family to think I’ve stopped fighting for them.”