Beauty Returns

by Sylvia McNicoll

  CHAPTER 25

  Elizabeth and Beauty

  “What do you mean, Magic’s not coming back?”

  My mother explains it to me in her patient, super-slow teacher’s voice. “The problem in Magic’s hip is significant enough to disqualify for breeding but not as a dog guide.”

  “I don’t even get to say goodbye?” I whisper.

  My mother shakes her head. “She’s old enough to begin training. She doesn’t need a foster family anymore.” A punch in the stomach—her words make me double up and hold myself in pain.

  “Every time I raise a dog, I end up loving it and then having to give it up. It’s not fair.”

  It’s not fair, the little kid in me echoes. The adult answers, Life’s not fair. I suddenly feel too adult. Like there’s no hope, like everything always ends up badly.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. No one could have predicted the hip problem.”

  I look away from her face, so I can hold back the tears. The trouble is, wherever I look, there’s some sign of Magic: her crate in the corner, her water and food dishes by the cupboards and in the hall, her stuffed animal. Wait a minute, maybe that belongs to Teal. I swallow hard over that one, too.

  “Maybe this will cheer you up a little…” my mother continues. “Kyle is coming over with an essay for me to mark. I’m going to look at it and maybe talk to Allan Veen about it. You see, I am getting to know your friend, giving him a chance the way you asked me to.”

  “I don’t want Kyle. I want my dog.” I don’t mean that, of course. I’m just so mad. I mean I want everything. I want Deb and Teal back, Magic, and Kyle, and Beauty. I don’t want to give up anybody in my life.

  In my mind, I hear Magic barking. I shake my head but still hear her. It’s so loud; frantic, desperate even. She’s howling like a wolf and scratching at the door.

  “What is that?” my mother asks. She must hear her, too. It’s not just in my head.

  I run to the front door and yank it open. “Beauty?” She’s standing there white-eyed, her mouth hanging open, foam dripping from it. Her fur looks wet, but she’s still wearing her harness, the handle empty.

  “Beauty, where is Kyle? You didn’t leave him?”

  Inside, I know the answer. Beauty would have never left Kyle unless… A horrible, cold feeling shudders through me.

  “Mom, something’s wrong!” I grab my coat, and Mom follows me as I take Beauty’s harness. Beauty gallops, and I fly behind her. We run so hard and long, my gums throb.

  As we near the park, I see an ambulance careen out from the jogging path. There's also a flashing ribbon of lights from a police car parked in the parking lot. Mom grabs my hand as we follow Beauty down to the dark shape of a tree near the stream. Beauty is pawing at something on the ground amongst the leaves—Kyle’s backpack. I pick it up and wrap my fingers round the handle. I feel Kyle’s presence and call out his name, thinking he’s got to be okay, but then the sensation ebbs away.

  Mom puts her arms around me and pulls my head into her shoulder.

  She strokes the back of my head.

  “We’ll call Kyle’s parents. There’s no point worrying over anything when we just don’t know.”

  But somewhere, deep down inside, I do know. Something awful is wrong with Kyle. Over her shoulder, I see a policeman with a flashlight approaching us.

  “That your dog?” he shouts.

  “No. Yes.”

  He ignores me and talks to my mom. “Paramedics reported a dog on the loose. Is that the one?”

  “Yes,” I answer. “She’s a dog guide. She belonged to Kyle.”

  I hear the past tense, the hollowness of Kyle’s name without his presence. It’s like the empty harness sticking out from Beauty’s back.

  Packed into the church are rows and rows of kids from school, the band members, the school council—Alicia’s in there, third row back—and the vice principal and principal. There are people with dog guides, too. Ahead of me, Angela sits with her Golden Retriever, Butterscotch. She and Butterscotch trained together with Kyle and Beauty, and we met them at Dog Guides Canada graduation last summer.

  Squeezed between parents, Donald looks so young and sad that I want to cry for him, too. Ryan, sitting closer to the front, dressed in a suit, looks as pale and hollow as I feel. Beside him, Maddie hides her head in her folded arms, which lie across the pew ahead of her. All their sorrow keeps pressing down on me so heavy that my ribs hurt, my heart aches. They make this bad dream into something too real.

  I’m going to be sick again. I close my eyes tightly, hold my stomach, and swallow. I look down at Beauty lying at my feet. Something in her sad eyes keeps me going.

  “You have to be strong, for her sake,” my mother told me yesterday, when Canine Vision called and asked us to pick up Beauty. They’d never seen such a brokenhearted dog. They were hoping that I could love her enough for her spirit, at least, to return. I couldn’t forget the sight of Beauty in the kennel, head and eyes down. When I called to her and her tail barely flapped once, I started to cry and couldn’t stop.

  We’re at the back of the church and I don’t want Mrs. Nicholson to hear me crying. I don’t want to upset her even more. I’ve never seen an adult cry the way she does. It’s as if someone is ripping out her soul.

  Beauty whines and shifts herself beside me. I reach down and pat her, and she licks my hand. Canine Vision told us I could finally keep a dog. They couldn’t retrain Beauty; she was too attached to me after losing Kyle. Even that feels awful, like something bad that I wished for came true.

  I look up again and, through a blur, see the agonizingly bright colours of the stained glass windows.

  I look forward again. It’s hard because then I have to face the coffin with his picture on it. Kyle, with his optimistic eyes, always staring in one direction—upwards. One red rose lies across the coffin—the one I bought this morning. Everyone else donated money to the Diabetes Foundation. The minister says that our high school alone donated five thousand dollars. Good, maybe they’ll figure out some way for blood-sugar testing not to hurt so much. Kyle would like that.

  I see Shawna standing between her father, straight and tall, and her mother, bowed over. She’s holding her mother and her father’s hands. Is she trying not to cry, too? She’s doing a far better job than I am.

  The minister talks about how Kyle’s quick thinking saved Donald from fatal hypothermia. My mother explained to me that Kyle had a heart defect; undetected despite all the medical attention he received for diabetes. The stress and exertion of the rescue brought on the heart attack, but it might have happened at any other time, too—just bad luck.

  Bad luck that he had diabetes, bad luck that he went blind from it, bad luck that in saving a boy from drowning, his own heart gave out—but was that bad luck? For sure, Kyle would be happier knowing he died while saving Donald rather than randomly dying while, say, Rollerblading in the park or surfing in Waikiki. How many people save a life, even if they live to be a hundred?

  The minister says Kyle has gone to a better place. Well, he can’t have just disappeared and gone into nothingness. That can’t be what death is all about.

  Angela walks forward with Butterscotch and a guitar. She introduces a song that she and Kyle wrote about their dog guides. She sings, and the lyrics open up another ache inside me—part of his life I never knew. So much we could have learned together. Her voice sounds like a violin singing the words. I bet Kyle liked her.

  The minister invites people to stand up and say things in a testimony to the life Kyle lived. I try to think of something.

  Beside my mother, Mr. Veen stands up.

  “Kyle Nicholson was a stubborn student who refused to back down from a challenge. He was also a terrific writer, insightful and sensitive. So much so, I could never believe the writing was his own. I’m sorry, Kyle.” Lame words, and too late to help anyone; except, they seem to give others courage, or maybe just time to think of things to say. Other people start to
rise from their seats.

  “He loved driving my Mustang with the top down. He was a better driver than my sister.” Ryan makes Mrs. Nicholson smile for a moment, and I forgive him for all the stupid things he’s ever said to me.

  A guy I saw at Ryan’s party stands. “Kyle taught me some tricky fingering on the guitar. He wrote lots of his own songs. I thought he had a lot of talent.”

  Maddie lifts her head and stands. “He worked ten times harder on his schoolwork than anyone else. He wanted to go to Queens and be a lawyer like his dad.” In the front row, his father buckles in his chair, and Shawna wraps her arms around him.

  I want to do something to make him and Kyle’s mother feel better. What, though? The answer comes to me as a melody in my head. I tap Angela on the shoulder and ask her to come up with me.

  We stand near the minister, till Beauty whines and pulls me to the coffin. I call Angela, and she tells Butterscotch to find Beauty. Now we’re both close to Kyle, even though I feel that, really, he’s very far away.

  I clear my throat.

  “Kyle wanted to be…” I clear my throat again and swallow hard. “Kyle would have been a great dad. He once held my nephew Teal when he was sick, and sang this song to him.”

  I whisper the name of it into Angela’s ear, and she begins to strum. I miss the whole verse before I can find my voice to start.

  Sunshine and starlight

  Reflect in your eyes

  When you smile at me baby,

  The clouds leave the skies

  Angela’s voice joins me, and after another few lines Shawna sings, too.

  The world can be a dark place

  Full of thunder, full of rain,

  Life can bring hardship,

  Love can bring pain

  More voices join us. It’s impossible to tell for sure, but it looks as if Kyle’s mom is singing, or at least mouthing the words.

  But I will love you always

  You can close your sweet eyes

  And I’ll protect you baby

  Till once again you rise

  I close my eyes, and Angela keeps strumming as she starts through the song again. In my mind, I hear Kyle singing. He’s looking down at a baby in his arms. Teal? I swallow hard. He’s in a better place, I tell myself, because that’s the only thing I can believe. Beauty whines softly at my feet, and I bend down to hug her. She’s all I have left of him. Beauty licks the tears from my face, and I sing the lullaby again, this time to her.

  We’re the last ones left at the graveside, Alicia and I. I told Mom we would walk home later. Alicia hugs me and cries into my shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry. When I said it would end badly for you, I never dreamt that…this could happen.”

  “That’s okay. Nobody did.” My voice comes out flat. I can’t feel anything, anger, or forgiveness, or sadness, or pain.

  Beauty whines loudly and slumps to the ground. Suddenly I feel as if all my insides have been heaved up.

  “It will be all right,” I choke out to Beauty and Alicia. Something I learned from all the worst, scariest, saddest times in my life—in the end, things always turn out all right. Something I can’t believe just right now, but I can tell them, and maybe it will be true.

  Alicia breaks off a sob. “What are we going to do?”

  I wipe at my face too, now. “The same thing we always do.”

  I look at Alicia and try to smile, “Swear off boys.”

  Beauty agrees. She starts barking and wags her tail.

  “You’re right. This time we really have to do it.”

  She hugs me long and hard, then pulls away, blows her nose, and looks in my face.

  “At least for a long, long while.”

  THE END