My screaming began as soon as I shut my car door, a terrible wailing without any words except “no, no, no.” I pounded my palms on the steering wheel. I grabbed handfuls of my hair and pulled hard, not even registering pain. It couldn’t possibly be true. Penny had been by my side during all the rough patches. She had never been sick. She would live to be fifteen.
I put my car into gear and backed carefully out of the parking lot, signaling to take a right. I drove slowly, scrubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand. It was a four-minute commute. When I got home, Madison was waiting for me on the front porch, looking very much like she had on the first day of kindergarten: lost in disbelief.
I stumbled up the porch stairs toward the front door.
Maddy pulled on my arm to stop me.
“Mom—I don’t know if—I don’t know if you want to see her.”
But I was already at the window and saw Penny stretched out on her side, little legs crossed gracefully, the way she always slept. The little fleece jacket was still on, covering her small back. Her eyes were open.
I bolted across the porch and leaned down into the bushes, retching up the fruit salad I’d had just a couple hours before at breakfast. Madison came over and smoothed back my matted hair.
“I need to see her,” I said at last, wiping my mouth.
Penny was lying right by the door where she always sat waiting for me. But when I opened the door, she didn’t bound to me with excitement, barking to welcome me home. She didn’t stir.
I collapsed onto the floor, looking at the back of her neck where the fleece didn’t cover her. I had just gotten her groomed and her fur was perfectly clipped at the back of her neck. She always looked so tiny after getting groomed, fragile almost, so pretty, so much a little princess.
“She’s a really good girl,” the groomer had said. “She’s such a cuddle bunny, always wanting to be held.”
I touched her head. She was so cold I imagined she’d caught a chill, some kind of bronchitis and couldn’t breathe—or something—because it made no sense that I had left her two hours before, all wagging and bright-eyed, and now she wasn’t even Penny anymore; she was like a doll, empty and cold.
“Mom—” Ian came in and knelt down next to me. He bowed his head and started to cry.
“It’s OK, honey,” I said, sounding like a robot, knowing I was telling him something that wasn’t true. It wasn’t OK. It would never be OK.
Maddy came out of the bedroom with the fuzzy pink blanket I used to cover Penny in the middle of the night when her nose didn’t feel warm.
She draped it carefully over Penny, covering her cold nose.
We stayed on the floor for what felt like a very long time, arms around one another, leaning in for support because alone, we knew we would fall apart.
“What do we do now?” Ian asked, touching the edge of the blanket.
“I don’t know what to do,” Madison said shakily.
I was on auto-pilot. We couldn’t keep Penny where she was on the floor, but it seemed insurmountable to move her. I called Eddie.
“Jesus,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Not Penny!”
“It happened and we’re all here and I don’t know what to do next.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
We waited for Eddie in silence. I couldn’t say if he got there quickly or if it took a while, because it felt like time had stopped. All I wanted was to go back to the morning, when I told Penny I’d be home soon. If I could go back, I would have stayed with her. I would never have left her side. I tried to remember what I’d said to her the night before, certain I’d told her she saved my life, every single day.
Eddie came rushing in, coming to a halt when he saw us on the floor.
“Hey,” he said to all of us. He leaned down and felt the blanket draped over Penny. “She’s cold,” he said, which infuriated me.
“We know that,” I snapped at him.
“How—how did this happen? Did she choke?” Eddie had tears in his eyes and was clearly having trouble forming words.
“We don’t—I don’t know—we couldn’t tell.”
Then it was the four of us sitting in silence next to Penny.
“We should call the vet,” Eddie said at last, pulling out his cell phone.
When Eddie reached the vet’s office, they said to bring Penny in. The office was just north of town.
None of us made a move to touch Penny.
“I’ll get her,” Eddie said finally.
“Please don’t touch her,” I shrieked, finding my voice again.
Eddie pulled back as if he’d touched something hot.
I eased Penny onto my lap, where she’d sat a thousand times before while I was writing at the dining room table. I’d imagined her being very light, but like a small statue, Penny was immobilized, frozen, and heavier than I remembered. The soul is weightless, I thought, trying hard to distance myself from emotions. Her soul had been gone when I had gotten home. She’d left before I had a chance to say goodbye.
I held her close in my arms as we all walked to the car, as if to keep her warm.
“Did she choke on something?” our kindly old veterinarian said after we’d carried her into the office and placed her carefully on an exam table, still wrapped up.
“We weren’t there. She was alone,” I said.
“How old?”
“Six,” Madison answered quickly.
I held on to the edge of the table to steady myself. “She was just in two months ago for a check-up and everything was fine.”
“These things happen, and we often don’t know why,” the vet said gently. “But
