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“Caitlyn, I don’t think he’s hungry,”
“He has to be! He hardly ate anything at all yesterday, and nothing this morning.”
Caitlyn held the bowl of soft food in front of her senile companion of 15 years. He sniffed at it some, before turning around to hobble to his bed on arthritis ridden legs, before lying down with a sigh and low grumble.
“He’s just old, he’ll eat when he’s ready,”
“This is just like how Archie was before he passed. Vi, I can’t do this again when I know I could be doing more for him.”
Angus was the loyal family dog of the Kirammans. He and his littermate, Archie, were gifted to them by Tobias’ eldest sister when her dog had an unexpected litter. So what else was she supposed to do but give two of the pups to her favorite niece?
“Caitlyn, there isn’t always anything you can do. Right now all he needs is to be kept comfortable and-“
“There has to be more! I could give him more pain medication, or maybe a fried egg in his food could get him to eat it-“
“Caitlyn,” Vi held her close “you’re doing everything you can. You take him swimming every day to help his hips, keep the fireplace burning at night so he doesn’t get cold, he’s so well taken care of and-“
“You think I don’t know that? Vi, he’s dying. I just can’t stand to see him go.”
Vi didn’t have anything else to say to Cait, because she knew nothing she said could make her feel better.
So they continued their day as they usually would when they didn’t have work. Vi helped Tobias weed his azalea bed, Caitlyn signed off on a few forms leftover from yesterday and continued the book she’d started the other day.
Lunch rolled around and Angus still hadn’t touched his food. He kept snoring away in his bed by the fireplace. He made it through the day without any accidents, and he didn’t get caught in the doggy door either.
By dinner time he ate half his bowl of food, and even managed to prop his front legs in Tobias’s lap and give him kisses. He even brought Caitlyn his favorite toy and put it on her lap to ask to play. He was slow when it came to hobbling over to fetch the toy, and then hobble his way back to Caitlyn and have the whole process repeated again.
For the first time in a few days, Caitlyn laughed. Like, really laughed. And it was also the first time in an even longer time since Angus played fetch with his favorite toy. But he wasn’t done there: once he was no longer amused with fetch he switched to tug-o-war with Vi. She let him win every time, and at the end of each round she’d pretend to be dramatically pulled to the floor where Angus would then attempt to tackle her and attack her with kisses and playfully nip her.
He finished his bowl of food, and even ate all of the table scraps that Vi and Tobias not-so-secretly snuck to him under the table.
He followed Caitlyn and Vi to bed and sat patiently by the sink while they showered, then brushed their teeth. Caitlyn lit the fireplace for Angus, fluffed his bed, made sure he had all of his toys. She, Vi, and Tobias gave him a kiss on the head before going to their rooms to settle in for the night, his tail wagging and smacking the floor the entire time. If dogs could smile, Angus definetly did that day.
Caitlyn and Vi read their books for a while before finally turning off their lamps and getting tucked under the covers as close to each other as they could. They both fell asleep within an hour. Knowing Tobias, he’d definitely fallen asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
Vi wasn’t sure how long she slept before she woke up cold and by herself. At first she thought Caitlyn had simply gone to the bathroom. Except the bathroom light wasn’t on. Vi was ready to stop thinking about it and close her eyes again when she heard a guttural cry from the sitting room. Vi nearly forgot her shirt because of how fast she jumped out of bed and ran down the hall.
The door was already open, and there Cait knelt on the floor over Angus, her father holding her close, both of their backs to Vi. Caitlyn’s shoulders shuddering and shaking with her cries as Tobias rubber her back and shushed her softly, whispering to her: “he was a good boy” and “he knew we loved him,”
And there Angus lie in his bed in front of the now dim fireplace, just like they left him before going to bed. But this time he was still. His chest wasn’t rising and falling with his respirations, and his cataract blurred eyes open with no life in them.
———
Caitlyn nor Tobias smiled in the weeks following Angus’ passing. Vi didn’t smile either. They’d cremated him, and placed his urn right next to his brother’s on the fireplace mantel.
On weekdays Caitlyn didn’t work late into the evening signing papers and work on the drawing board like she usually did. Instead she’d sit in her chair by the fireplace and stare and Archie and Angus’ urns. And only when Vi pulled her to their room for bed did she move from that spot.
After some months, Caitlyn’s birthday was approaching. But the closer it got, she didn’t seem to get excited. She didn’t express any plans to Vi or her Father about presents, or a special dinner. She didn’t even talk about inviting Mel over.
Vi and Tobias even asked her one evening over tea what she’d like to do, but their questions and suggestions were only met with “I don’t know,” or “I’m not sure if I want anything this year,”
On the morning of Cait’s birthday, there wasn’t a present waiting for her on her chair. Vi made her favorite breakfast, and kissed her twice as much as usual. Caitlyn’s father brought in some fresh flowers from his garden and placed a kiss on her temple and the tip of her nose before wishing her a very happy birthday.
After Cait finished her breakfast, Vi and Tobias declared that they needed to run some very important errands. They both kissed and hugged her goodbye before leaving the house around mid morning.
Closer to noon, Mel stopped by to take Caitlyn to her favorite tea place, and insisted she buy her a box of cupcakes that was much too big. Mel stuck around to have a few cupcakes with Cait before saying goodbye and taking the next airship back to Noxus.
Caitlyn didn’t want to go back to the house and spend the rest of the day wallowing by herself. She took a nice long walk in the town, sat by her mother’s statue for a while, and went to the liquor store to buy her father a new bottle of his favorite bourbon. She stopped by the library and checked out a few novels she hadn’t read yet, and read about a third of the way through one of them in the park before the sun got too low in the sky, and the air was too chilly to be comfortable.
She made it home in time to sit next to her father by the fire while he had his evening smoke and glass of wine.
“Where’s Violet? She’s usually here with you?” Caitlyn asked.
“Erm, I do believe she’s in your office. She uhm, said she has something for you,” Tobias said. He was terrible at pretending to hide things.
Caitlyn knew it was probably some cheesy present Vi spend hours thinking up, and even longer preparing for. She knew it would be accompanied by a ridiculously large bouquet of flowers, and an even more ridiculous sum of kisses. She knew that the evening would end with them sharing a hot bath with all sorts of candles and scented oils in the water. There was also a high chance the evening would end in making love with all sorts of raunchy praises. Caitlyn wasn’t complaining, though, that did sound like a perfect way to spend the evening for her birthday.
But Caitlyn opened the door to her office, and instead of being greeted by what she’d expected, she opened the door to an unoccupied room. But before she could turn around to see if Vi was perhaps in her room, she heard a shuffle. She glanced back into the room, and scanned it carefully. Then she heard the shuffle again, it sounded like it was coming from under her desk.
“Vi, it’s rather silly of you to hide there,” but there was no response. Caitlyn barely began striding to the desk before this flash of awkward legs and floppy ears bolted out from behind the desk, barking and zooming around the room like some insane tornado.
The blur ran a few more laps around the room and a few pieces of furniture before collapsing and rolling onto its back in front of Caitlyn to reveal its little pink belly and crazed puppy eyes.
Caitlyn looked down at the Doberman pup at her feet. It lie there a few moments anticipating it be pet before barking in impatience. Caitlyn was stunned. This time the puppy rolled back to its feet and scratched at Caitlyn’s legs to beg for attention, its little tail wagging wildly.
Vi came out from under Cait’s desk, completely exasperated from attempting to hold the puppy still until Cait came around the desk and found them there like she hoped, but the dog had other plans.
Caitlyn looked to Vi, then the puppy, then back to Vi, and now her father standing in the doorway. And all she could do was pick up the small creature and cry. She cried and cried, the puppy licked and nosed at the tears coming from Caitlyn’s eyes.
“Her name is Daisy. Violet and I went and got her from the shelter out of town today-“ she didn’t hear anything her father or Vi said after that. She was too busy looking down at the precious babe in her arms while weeping and smiling profusely. She didn’t notice that Vi’s shirt was wet where the puppy had peed on her in excitement just moments before. She didn’t notice that her dad was crying too when he embraced both Caitlyn and the puppy in his arms.
Daisy looked just like Angus and Archie did when they were brought home. Her legs too long for her little body, the way she presented her tummy to Caitlyn was the same as Archie used to do, and the way she was licking at Caitlyn’s tears were the same as the way Angus would.
Vi and Caitlyn took a bath together that night with candles and scented oils. They made love by the fireplace in Caitlyn’s room with raunchy praises and “thank you’s”. And at the end of the night they settled into bed with Daisy in between them.
Caitlyn truly felt that Archie and Angus had sent Daisy to them from their eternal rest. She was perfect in so many ways. And for the first time in months, Caitlyn laughed. Like, really laughed.