Ever by My Side

by Nick Trout

  “How’s she doing on her walks?” I ask.

  “Fine,” says Dad, “she’s a little slower than she used to be but then so am I. We still manage three walks a day.”

  “How far?”

  Dad winces but I can still sense his mind pacing out the routes, tallying up the mileage.

  “Eight to ten miles, I reckon, all told.”

  No wonder Sasha stays lean (despite all the treats I see him slipping in her direction). Then again, so does my father. He seems to be wasting away. Is there something wrong that he isn’t telling me? Are the changes in Sasha’s paws the result of all this wear and tear and is she about to break down, unable to keep up with the routine her master so dearly craves? If his dog can’t walk, I am not sure how my father will cope.

  Without my parents knowing, I had strolled up to the top of the village in search of their dear friend Vera, seeking her take on my father’s health. She is a small, feisty woman and wonderfully forthright, as sharp as ever at eighty-five, with the hands of a farmer after years of gardening.

  “He lives for that dog, doesn’t he?” she told me and I had to agree.

  “Last month,” she said, “when he went off to Australia to visit your sister, he was acting all melancholy about not seeing Sasha for so long, and how would he cope and how would she be affected by the trip, and I said to him, Duncan, don’t be so bloody silly! The poor dog will love it. She finally gets to have a rest!”

  Before I leave them again, with Sasha pooped out and asleep on her bed, I ask my father to take me to the private graveyard on the hillside where Whiskey and Bess were buried, a place I have never been.

  We walk down through the village, past the cottages and farmhouses, turn right, uphill, and after a quarter mile find a footpath. It leads us through a dense copse and I become aware of a pungent odor in the air, like raw onions.

  “What’s that smell?” I ask, beginning to feel the climb in my chest, surprised the mission has changed from a quick visit to an actual hike.

  “Wild garlic,” says my father, pointing to the long grassy leaves blanketing the woodland floor. Once again, he is hardly panting. Nearly fifty years of walking dogs has paid big dividends with regard to his fitness.

  “Perhaps we should take some home to mother,” I say. “Spice up her cooking!”

  I look back to register my father’s smile but he tactfully says nothing as we make it to the top and a narrow gap in the wall built specifically for hikers, and thin hikers at that.

  “This way,” says Dad, striding out.

  I am waiting for a “not much further now” but it never comes. We cross another field mined with cow patties, and another, over a stile and then into a field occupied by sheep and lambs.

  “Head toward the top left-hand corner,” he says and all I can think of is how on earth he carried Bess and Whiskey all the way up here. Bess must have weighed sixty pounds, Whiskey more like eighty. And there was no way my mother would have been able to help.

  We leave the field, cross a lightly rutted trail that obviously provides access for small vehicles, open a large railed gate, and step into one more field. We are in a large pasture, the final neat rectangular plot before the land angles up steeply, rising and merging into a much larger hill dotted with sheep pretending to be mountain goats. I can see at least thirty miles up and down the dale in both directions.

  “Here we are,” says my father, and to be honest I am a bit surprised. Up against the drystone wall, adjacent to a small metal hut in which shelters a bay gelding, there lie a series of tombstones. There are sheep in the field, watching us, and the horse comes over to see what we are up to. I think I must have expected the shade from some mighty oak, something very private, and something far more accessible. But then this soft muzzle brushes up against my shoulder, a blast of warm horse breath blowing across my hand. As I rub the horse’s nose, his friendliness strikes me as being so respectful, almost reverential, and I begin to appreciate the whole scene with a new perspective, how it has a certain calm and natural quietness to it, a simple place that makes you feel part of something bigger.

  “The first one is theirs,” says my father, doing a little tidying up around the base of the stone.

  I read the legend.

  WHISKEY AND BESS, FAITHFUL FRIENDS.

  “Looks good,” I say.

  “Aye,” says my father, this small word and his gentle tone speaking volumes about their relationship.

  “But I had forgotten they weren’t alone,” I add.

  There are three other headstones next to theirs forming a little row. Each of these stones also has a name chipped into the rock. Another “Bess,”

  “Penny,” and “Jet.”

  “Other dogs from the village?”

  My father just nods.

  “I have to ask, how on earth did you get them up here? I mean it’s quite a way, and getting over the walls and fences.”

  “It was,” he says, “but you can get a car a bit closer. I’ll show you on the way back.”

  We stand for a quiet moment, paying our respects, but I am secretly watching how my father handles himself. Duncan will always be vulnerable when it comes to animals, keeping his soft side close to the surface, and I wonder if my trip up here, with me about to head off to America again, might have made him melancholy. When I gauge that he appears to be fine, I chance a difficult question.

  “So what about Sasha? Is this where she will be buried too?”

  “No,” says my father, and I wonder if the physical aspect of what he had done over a decade ago, the challenge of burying these dogs, was now too much, beyond his strength.

  “She’ll be buried in our small patch of land behind the cottage. That way, I’ll keep her close by.”

  As I stand there, I think, how strange to have made a lasting tribute to two dogs and still feel as though it wasn’t enough, as though they were still too far away.

  When we get back to the cottage I take my mother aside.

  “How’s he doing?” I ask.

  “Your father? He’s fine. Fit as a fiddle.”

  I search her face for signs of deception or exaggeration, and finding none add, “What happens when he loses Sasha? How’s he going to cope?”

  “Nicholas,” she snaps, her shrill tone instantly transporting me back to a childhood scolding, “it’s not a matter of how he’s going to cope. How am I going to cope, what with him getting all maudlin and getting underfoot, moping about the house? I’ve told him a dozen times, this is it; after Sasha’s gone, no more dogs.”

  This time, when I look, I see something give. Mum may have given it her best shot but she smiles back at me, all resolve weakening in her mischievous sparkly green eyes.

  I have heard it all before. If and when the situation arises, I know exactly what will happen next.

  And best of all, so does she.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The word acknowledge feels wholly inadequate in the context of a son’s gratitude to his parents. So much of what I try to achieve in life stems from the values they imparted and the sacrifices they made. There is comfort in knowing they have found a slice of heaven in the Yorkshire Dales, and in spite of the distance and times zones between us, I want them to know that they have not been taken for granted, that I am forever proud to call them “Mum” and “Dad.” For the record, any inference that my mother’s culinary skills were more Easy-Bake Oven than Julia Child was inappropriate and the work of a cheeky son!

  In no particular order I would like to thank Beth Benson, Chris Dodds, Sandi Rasmussen, Vera Brown, Fiona, Pete, Jack, Holly, George, and Nick Richmond, Jack Shepherd, Ryan James, Arthur Stone, and my agent, Kristin Lindstrom. Once again I have been blessed and awed by the talent and commitment of the entire team at Broadway, in particular Ellen Folan, Jennifer Robbins, and my editor, Christine Pride. Somehow Christine manages to find the writer in the veterinarian. I thank her for her expertise and friendship.

  At the heart of this book lies
a desire to appreciate the attributes of those—on both two legs and on four—with whom we spend our lives. With respect to Meg and Sophie, they continue to be an entertaining, disparate, yet surprisingly compatible combo that feels just right. But as ever, it is my daughters, Whitney and Emily, and my wife, Kathy, to whom I owe everything. Thank you for allowing me to share this story and for your love and support. This book, this man, and this life would be nothing without all of you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nick Trout graduated from veterinary school at the University of Cambridge in 1989. He is a Diplomate of the American and European Colleges of Veterinary Surgeons and is a staff surgeon at the prestigious Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston. He is the author of two books, the New York Times bestseller Tell Me Where It Hurts and Love Is the Best Medicine, and has been a contributing columnist for The Bark and Prevention magazines.

  Nick considers himself a runner (though his marathon days are behind him), an avid reader, and a passionate advocate for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, two daughters, and their two dogs, Meg, their yellow Labrador, and Sophie, their Jack Russell terrier.

  Visit Nick Trout online at www.facebook.com/drnicktrout.