Boomer's Bucket List

by Sue Pethick

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Why don’t we just stay in tonight? I’ll take a shower, put on my pj’s, and join you here on the couch. Maybe we can find something good on Netflix.”

  She slipped her hand under his collar to make sure he wasn’t feverish, then started upstairs. Boomer was going in for his annual checkup the next week anyway, Jennifer thought. She’d ask Dr. Samuels about it when she took him in then. In the meantime, she wasn’t going to let herself get freaked out about this. The fact was, it was probably nothing.

  CHAPTER 2

  People do a lot of different things when they’re nervous. Jennifer was making her already too-busy life even busier. As she sat in the veterinarian’s office that morning, waiting to hear Boomer’s test results, she was answering e-mails, checking her phone messages, and balancing her checkbook—anything to keep from imagining the worst.

  She reached down and gave him a reassuring pat.

  “It’s probably nothing,” she whispered. “No need to worry.”

  But Jennifer was worried. When she’d brought Boomer in for his yearly checkup and casually mentioned that he seemed more tired than usual, she’d been expecting Dr. Samuels to give him a shot of vitamins. Instead, the vet had urged her to have a battery of tests done on Boomer that had lasted half the day and required a specialist’s interpretation. She suspected that Samuels was overreacting, but he’d been so insistent that she’d agreed to have them done. Now sitting in his office a week later, Jennifer almost wished she hadn’t. After all, Boomer was just a kid. There couldn’t be anything seriously wrong with him, could there?

  The examination-room door opened, and Dr. Samuels’s new assistant called them in. A well-endowed brunette in her thirties, the woman dressed like a teenager and spoke in a giggly voice that went up at the end of every sentence. Just the type, Jennifer thought sourly, that her ex-husband, Vic, would have slobbered over. Boomer looked up, growling low in his throat as Jennifer shut down her computer. She might not have been so quick to judge, she thought, but Boomer didn’t seem to like the woman, either, and Boomer was an excellent judge of character.

  “Looks like it’s our turn, Boomski,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  The door had barely closed behind them when Dr. Samuels came in. From the look on his face, Jennifer could tell it was bad news. Her heart began to pound, and she reached out for Boomer as if to shield him from what was coming. Samuels shook her hand and gave Boomer a friendly pat.

  “Thanks for coming in again. I know it was hard having to wait, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything before we discussed the test results.”

  He glanced at Boomer’s chart, then cleared his throat and set it aside.

  “This isn’t the kind of news I like to give my patients,” he said sadly. “I like to think I can save every animal who comes in here. Unfortunately, however, that’s just not the case.”

  Tears sprang to Jennifer’s eyes and a lump formed in her throat as Samuels continued.

  “When you brought Boomer in last week, I detected a systolic murmur and suspected there might be something wrong with his heart. Your comment that he’d been more tired than usual added to that suspicion, but without further tests there was no way to know for certain what was wrong.”

  Jennifer took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down.

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “Boomer has HCM, or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy,” he said. “It’s a thickening of the heart walls that reduces the amount of blood ejected during its contraction phase. As the animal’s body begins to starve for oxygen, the heart pumps harder, stressing it further. Eventually, the animal develops heart failure.”

  He paused, waiting for Jennifer to ask another question, but her mind had gone blank.

  “But he doesn’t even look sick.”

  “I know,” Samuels said. “And Boomer probably doesn’t feel sick, either, at least not the way you or I would. He may not be able to jump or run around like he used to, but the chances are he doesn’t really notice, and the good news is he’s not in any pain.”

  All right, Jennifer told herself, this might not be the outcome she was hoping for, but it wasn’t the end of the world, either. At work, she had a reputation for solving the biggest problems for the toughest clients. All she had to do was apply that talent to fixing Boomer’s problem and everything would be fine. Heart failure was treatable, and she had money in her savings account. Whatever it took—a special diet, medicine, exercise—she’d pay for it, and gladly. She’d do anything to keep her boy alive.

  “Okay,” she said. “How do we fix this and get Boomer back to his old self?”

  The vet gave her a pitying look and slowly shook his head.

  “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. You see, Boomer’s condition is very advanced; he’s past the stage where diuretics or any other type of intervention might have helped. All you can do now, I’m afraid, is to make sure he stays comfortable and enjoy the time you have left with him. I’m sorry.”

  “That can’t be right,” she snapped, sounding angrier than she meant to. “My grandfather lived for years with heart failure.”

  Samuels nodded patiently.

  “I imagine he did, but human hearts are different. Look, if you’d like to speak with the canine cardiologist, I’d be happy to arrange a phone consult for you, but he and I went over the test results very thoroughly and there was really no doubt in either of our minds. At best, we think Boomer has perhaps a month left.”

  Jennifer found herself struggling to breathe, as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

  “A month?” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “But that’s just not enough time. There are so many things we haven’t gotten around to doing yet, stuff I promised him we’d do someday.”

  She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

  “Work’s been a grind and I know I’ve put some things off, but Boomer’s only five and he’s my best friend, and, and”—tears were spilling down her cheeks—“and he’s all I’ve got.”

  Samuels, too, was fighting back tears. He stepped forward and gave her a gentle hug.

  “I know how you feel; I lost my Boston terrier to HCM when she was only two. It’s a rare condition in dogs and I hoped like hell that I was wrong. The only positive thing I can tell you is at least you know it’s coming now. With most cases, the first symptom is cardiac arrest.”

  Jennifer nodded, wiping away her tears, and forced a weak smile.

  “Thank goodness for small favors, I guess.”

  “Exactly.”

  She glanced at Boomer, who was watching her with a look of concern.

  “Is there anything else I should do?” she said. “What about changing his diet?”

  Samuels shook his head. “No, just keep an eye on him. If he starts passing out or you notice his gums turning blue, you’ll want to give him some extra rest. Other than that, I suppose you could try not to get him too stressed out. When the end comes, though, I promise it’ll be quick and relatively painless.”

  Jennifer walked out of the vet’s office with Boomer in tow, as oblivious to the world around her as a sleepwalker. She always knew she’d lose her dog someday; it was realizing how much of his short life she’d already missed that she regretted. While she’d been spending nights and weekends at work, Boomer’s time on earth had been dwindling. Now it felt like every dream she’d put off had been snatched away. When they got back to her truck, she slipped behind the wheel and wept.

  “I’m sorry, Boomie,” she sobbed, hugging him. “I’ll make it up to you somehow. I promise.”

  *

  An hour later, Jennifer was back at home, already halfway toward keeping that promise. Dry-eyed and determined, she was working on a plan. She took out a pad of paper and grabbed a pen. At the top of the first page, she wrote: Things to Do with Boomer. If her boy had only a month left, then she was going to make sure that it was the best month
of his life. She’d pack the truck, and they’d hit the road, just the two of them, doing all the things she’d planned for them to do “someday.”

  As far as taking the time off from work, Jennifer thought, she was lucky. Her job as an account executive at one of the toniest PR firms in Chicago was a big plus, and with all the overtime she’d been putting in, they owed her. The CEO, Derek Compton, would pitch a fit, of course, but the way she saw it, he didn’t really have a choice. There were two CLIOs, one regional ADDY, and a Cannes Lion sitting in his trophy case that were generally acknowledged to have been won through her efforts. He could give her the time off or she could quit and go to work for one of his competitors when she got back.

  With that problem solved, the question became what she and Boomer should do during their month together. Hildy told her he’d been slowing down the last couple of weeks, and Dr. Samuels said to expect more of the same in the time ahead. Jennifer glanced over at her dog, happily ensconced in his favorite chair and gnawing a rawhide chew.

  “Sorry, Boom-Boom. Looks like hiking the Appalachian Trail is out.”

  She sat back, searching her memory for the times when Boomer had enjoyed himself the most. Like any dog, he loved eating, playing, and chasing squirrels, but what was it, specifically, that made his tail wag?

  Well, she thought, he loved cars—the ones that drove by on their street, of course, and the souped-up NASCAR racers on the TV—and he went wild whenever they took a drive and Jennifer let him stick his nose out the window so he could savor all the good smells that flew by. He loved the roar of loud engines and sniffing the puddles of oil he found in the street. He even had a squeaky toy that looked like Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars.

  “Okay,” she said, writing the number “one” on her list. “ ‘Something to do with cars.’ What else?”

  After ten more minutes of brainstorming, though, Jennifer was stumped. She kept thinking of things they could do, but none that seemed big or important enough to make up for what she felt had been her neglect of Boomer. As her confidence slipped, she began to feel discouraged again. Tears had begun welling in her eyes when she heard Boomer jump down from his chair and start rooting in his toy box. Seconds later, she heard the familiar squeaky-squeak of Lightning McQueen. Jennifer turned and saw Boomer walking toward her with the toy in his mouth, the hopeful look in his eyes daring her to try and take it away.

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ve already got cars on my list, but what else, Boomster? We can’t just get in the truck and drive around the block a hundred times. If we’re going to take a road trip, we have to take a trip to somewhere.”

  And then it hit her: Cars! The movie was about driving Route 66. Which, as it happened, started in Chicago and went west all the way to the California coast. If she and Boomer drove Route 66, they could see some interesting sights, gorge themselves on regional foods, and romp in the Pacific Ocean when they reached Santa Monica Pier. She could probably even find maps and guidebooks showing all the places they could visit along the way. She grabbed the squeaky toy, and the two of them started a tug-of-war.

  “What do you say, Boomer? Want to get your kicks on Route 66?”

  CHAPTER 3

  Jennifer’s prediction about her boss came true the next day when she told him about her plan to take a month off. She knew he wouldn’t be happy about it, but she hadn’t expected a flat-out denial of her request, either. By the time she and Derek Compton had finished screaming at each other, the entire office was in the loop. Nevertheless, she’d been right about his not wanting to lose her. When she mentioned that the stress of losing Boomer was forcing her to “reevaluate her priorities,” he’d given in, correctly interpreting it as a threat to quit. As she stepped out into the hallway and headed back to her office, she felt like a boxer leaving the ring: bruised, battered, but victorious.

  Stacy Randall watched Jennifer walk by her desk, feeling something akin to awe. As the department admin, Stacy had been the target of Compton’s wrath on more than one occasion, and the fact that someone was finally getting the better of him seemed like nothing short of a miracle. That it had been Jennifer Westbrook, a beautiful ex-model with a mysterious past, was just icing on the cake. When Jennifer called her into her office, Stacy grabbed a notepad and hurried down the hall, hoping for a gossip-worthy tidbit.

  “By now, I’m sure everyone within earshot knows that I’m taking the next month off,” Jennifer said as she closed the door. “I’m going to need you to take care of a few things for me while I’m gone.”

  “Of course.” Stacy took a seat, her pen poised.

  “Since I’ll be leaving on short notice, anything on my calendar for the next month will have to be either rescheduled or given to one of the other AEs.”

  “No problem.”

  “Mike Kuby can handle the presentation to Bewick’s without me. I’ll e-mail him my notes before I go.”

  Jennifer sat down, looking frazzled as she pawed through the papers on her desk, and Stacy wondered if there were any personal details she’d overlooked.

  “What about things at home?” she said. “You know, like stopping the paper, the trash, having the post office hold your mail… .”

  “Oh, God,” Jennifer said, putting her head in her hands. “I didn’t even think about that. I suppose I’ll just have to try and take care of those things before I leave in the morning.”

  “I can do it for you,” Stacy said hopefully.

  “That’s sweet, Stace, but I really couldn’t impose on you like that.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem,” she said, smiling. “I’d be happy to. You’ve got enough to think about with Boomer … um … you know.”

  She shrugged, hoping she hadn’t given offense.

  “I could water your plants and stuff, too, if you want. I’ve done it for my neighbors before and they’d vouch for me.”

  Jennifer looked at Stacy’s imploring gaze and sighed. She’d been aware for some time that her admin was a bit stagestruck by the high-profile clients who passed through the doors of Compton/Sellwood. Maybe she’d even been foolish enough to listen to some of the wilder rumors about Jennifer that had been passed around the office and thought some of that magic would rub off on her. As much as she could use the help, though, she hated to take advantage of the younger woman’s girl crush.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  Stacy grinned. “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, but only if you let me pay for your time.”

  “You don’t have to,” Stacy said. “But thanks.”

  Jennifer nodded. “I’ve got a second set of house keys in my locker. Make sure I give them to you before I leave this afternoon.”

  With that settled, Jennifer felt instantly less harried and it occurred to her that Stacy’s offer might have solved a problem she’d only been aware of subconsciously. She was about to dismiss her admin and get back to work, when Stacy said:

  “Have you given someone your itinerary?”

  “What?”

  “You know, a list of where you’re going and when. Then if something happens to you along the way, the police will know where to look for your body.”

  Jennifer tried not to laugh. Clearly, Stacy had been watching too many episodes of Law & Order.

  “I don’t really think that’s necessary,” she said. “Boomer and I will be fine on our own.”

  “But what if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you can’t get a signal on your phone? You could be stuck for weeks without food or water before anyone even notices you’re missing.”

  Jennifer was about to insist that there were plenty of people who’d notice if she went missing when it occurred to her—with a twinge of sadness—that that might not be the case. Her father had passed away when she was still in high school, and her mother was in a nursing home, barely able to remember what day it was. She and Vic had split up almost six years ago and he and his new wife lived somewhere up in Michigan and wouldn’t bother to check
on her in any case. One of her neighbors might notice if she was missing long enough, but like most city apartment dwellers, she barely knew any of them except to say hello. As the reality of her barren personal life sank in, Jennifer felt heat rise in her face. No wonder she spent so much time at work. It was the only life she had.

  And now she was losing Boomer, too.

  “No, if I had an itinerary, I’d have to stick to it and I was thinking Boomer and I would just wing it. Besides,” she added sheepishly, “I really don’t have anybody to give an itinerary to.”

  Stacy looked up from her note pad. “You can give it to me.”

  Jennifer shook her head, trying not to let her irritation show.

  “I appreciate your concern, but there’s really no time for me to make one up, thanks.”

  “Well … maybe you could just take pictures of your trip and send them to me. That way, someone will know where you are and you won’t have to write anything. Please,” Stacy said. “I’d feel a lot better if you did.”

  Exasperation was quickly souring Jennifer’s mood. Nevertheless, she had to concede that Stacy had a point. She’d already been planning to take pictures of Boomer to remember their trip by and forwarding them to her admin wouldn’t take any extra time. Plus, she had to admit that the thought of being on the road with no one back home even knowing where she was gave her a creepy feeling. A woman alone—even if she had a dog with her—could still be pretty vulnerable.

  “All right. If it makes you feel better, I’ll send you some pictures along the way, but that’s it. I promised myself that this trip was just for Boomer and me. For the next few weeks, I’m off-line: no e-mail, no text messages, and no social media. If there’s an emergency, I’ll have my cell with me, but don’t you dare call me for anything less than a nuclear war over the North Side of Chicago.” She paused. “And not even then.”

  Stacy grinned. “What if there’s a nuclear war over the South Side?”

  Jennifer shook her head. “I don’t live on the South Side.”