What He's Been Missing

I looked at the shotgun in the dirt and started crying harder again.

“I’ll go with her to the vet, Ma Lou,” Ian said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You is some kind of man to my grandbaby,” Grammy Annie-Lou said, sliding her arm around Ian’s waist. “Take a real man to make a woman right when she’s wrong.”

Ian beamed so brightly I felt King roll his eyes.

“I’ll have two pies ready for you when you come back from the doctor’s and they put the dog down,” she said.

“They aren’t going to put him down,” I said, holding King tighter and covering his ears. “He just has worms and needs a shot.”

The doctor told us we needed to put King down.

I cried like he was my best friend. I cried like I never knew how much I loved that lazy dog. I cried like I missed a mother I’d known. I cried like I never mourned my father.

I signed the paperwork giving the doctor the right to inject poison into King’s body. I knew Grammy Annie-Lou would say that the shotgun would’ve been cheaper, but I didn’t want to see the shotgun, hear the shot and know that my father’s dog was bleeding from his head. With the injection, I could imagine he was sleeping. Dreaming about the red truck and my father.

When it was done and King’s heart had stopped beating beneath my ear on the cool metal table, where the only veterinarian in Social Circle had laid his body, Ian helped me up and walked me out to the waiting room that instantly became a funeral parlor. I fell to the floor and wailed so hard the vet and his secretary went to wait in the office.

Ian got down on the floor and rocked me so close to his heart I felt it beating.

He was right. I didn’t mean for him to come. But I needed him to be there.

“I left him here,” I cried into Ian’s shoulder. “I should’ve taken him with me.”

“To Atlanta?” Ian laughed to make me aware of how I sounded. “You think King would’ve fit in at Piedmont Park with the Chihuahuas and bulldogs?”

“Don’t talk bad about my dog!” I said.

“I’m sorry. I was just pointing out that he was where he was supposed to be. King wasn’t a leash dog. Not all dogs are meant to be tied to a person like that. He was out here free. Could come and go as he pleased. He chose to stay until he couldn’t stay anymore.”

“He was a good dog,” I said. “Had my back.”

“That’s what a good dog is supposed to do.”

I watched Ian so closely in the car on the way back to Grammy Annie-Lou’s. I was still thinking about King, but I couldn’t help but remember what Journey said about me committing to not love him. Grammy Annie-Lou was right: he was so good to me. So supportive. So loving. I wondered if I’d let him slip by me. If he’d let me slip by him.

I slid my hand over his on the armrest between the seats. We smiled at each other the rest of the way.

When we got to the house, Grammy Annie-Lou had cooked everything she could find and had lain it out on the dining room table. There were ribs and greens. Macaroni and cheese and yams.

Ian started rubbing his belly and she giggled so deeply I knew they were in love.

“Pies in the oven. Be ready in an hour, but then it needs to cool,” she said and it was easy to imagine that it was how she’d sounded when she’d offered my grandfather a plate long before I was born.

“No worries,” Ian said, sitting in one of the dining room chairs before the massive afternoon meal. “I got all night.”

“All night? Don’t you have to get back to Atlanta for your Valentine’s date with Scarlet?” I asked when Grammy Annie-Lou went back into the kitchen.

“Canceled it,” he said nonchalantly.

“Canceled what? You can’t cancel a Valentine’s Day dinner with your fiancée—unless you want to die!”

“It’s not my life you should be worried about,” Ian said, laughing. “She didn’t sound too happy that you had an emergency!”

“Ian! That’s awful. Go back to Atlanta and be with your fiancée. I can bring the pie.”

“Rachel, I’m where I want to be. I’ll see Scarlet tonight when I get home.” Ian reached down and unbuttoned his belt. “But now, we eat!”