“Another one, Carlo.” After the ink dried she tied the note with the rest. She scratched his ears. Patient Carlo hadn’t moved all day.
Carlo was getting ready to take a very long walk, without her. She remembered every walk they’d ever taken together, everything they’d seen. Every tree and blade of grass, new spring leaves, brown fallen leaves of autumn. Blue skies and gray. They followed sunsets and climbed hills like they were Crusaders’ castles. How much ground had they touched? All of it, everywhere, for dust from the whole country blew in and came to rest in Amherst.
Carlo could not take her with him this time, but he could take part of her, the words. Faithful Carlo could carry her letters.
If she could ask a question of Death, any question at all, what would it be? Emily wrote her questions on scraps of papers and tied them to Carlo’s collar.
“Emily?” Vinnie was calling from the top of the stairs this time. She’d crept up so as not to startle the guests with her shouting. “They’ve come all the way from Boston. They’d like to see you.”
They might as well be visitors from Jerusalem as from Boston. There were so much more interesting places to travel than Jerusalem or Boston. How far could a bee burrow inside an iris before it became lost? How far would Carlo walk this time?
She hugged him, holding her face against his smelly fur. He used to be massive, weighing almost as much as she. But he’d stopped eating, and she could feel his ribs.
No visitors tonight, oh no. She had to wait for Carlo to return.
It had happened late that evening, when the house was still. Carlo slipped out, and she didn’t even hear his clawed paws clicking on the floor. The gardener, Dick, took him away, saying he’d put him in the ground under a nice tree. Nearest thing to a Christian burial one like Carlo could have, he’d said. Everyone was very quiet that night, more careful of Emily than usual. Especially Vinnie, who sat with her a long time and told stories about great good Carlo. Emily contradicted her. Carlo belonged to her. All Vinnie had ever done was spoil the beast with pastries or punish him for tracking mud.
Emily clung to her sister until the candle went out, then she curled up in bed alone.
Emily wrote the best condolences. She understood, she took the grief of others into her heart, tugged it and sewed it up to try and make it whole and good, then she sent it back as poetry. Her correspondence was voluminous.
He was my friend! Easier to express sadness when sadness had a cause. People would understand. They would mourn with her.
And they would say poor Emily, like always.
How to write it? What words? He died. That was all. But that didn’t explain it, not at all. What would she do when the hole left behind was larger? A Father-sized hole? But Father didn’t take walks, not like Carlo. Carlo taught her as much about the world as Father ever had. And Carlo had never begrudged her Keats.
A week ago she had not imagined a hole shaped like Carlo.
Was Death so enticing, that Carlo would walk with him and not her?
A house asleep. A world asleep, so still the maple in the yard groaned. It creaked so loud, as though goblins danced on every bough. They’d break all the limbs if they weren’t careful. There should be a dog to bark at them.
And so it did. A deep rumble, like a saw raking through wood.
Emily sat up. “Carlo.”
He’d come to fetch her, so they could take a walk together.
Wrapping a blanket tight around her, she climbed out of bed and scampered down the stairs, barefoot. The clicking of paws sounded in the foyer.
Skidding to her knees, slipping the rug on the hardwood floor of the foyer, she met Carlo head-on, crashing into him with a hug. He wrestled her over, playing, and she had to clamp shut his muzzle to keep him from barking and waking up the house, even though she was laughing loud enough to do so. But no one woke; they were alone.
There was a note tied to his collar. Just one, thick creamy stationery folded and tied with a black velvet ribbon. Her name, “Emily,” was written on the outside in a flourishing hand.
A reply. She loved receiving letters. Every one with her name on it was an affirmation—here is a world, here is a friend, and I am here too! When her friends didn’t write back it was so easy to think them dead. They frightened her when they didn’t write back.
Climbing out of their wrestle, half-sprawling on Carlo, she eagerly untied the ribbon and unfolded the page. Written in solid black ink, in confident cursive:
In time—
And nothing more.
The paper lay lightly in Emily’s hands. “In time, the carriage stops for all.”
Was that right? It was a riddle, surely, and she must know if her answer was right. In time all happens, armies march, wars are won and lost, the seasons turn endless and eternal. All people are born and die. But what happened out of time?
“I must reply. At once, I must write! And you must carry the letter for me, Carlo.”