WELL DONE! Beast of the Moment by Larry F. Sommers

Beast of the Moment by Larry F. Sommers

Failing light fell through the front window, warmed a degree or two by the brown drapes. High quality to begin with, the drapes had faded hardly at all over thirty years. They had been a good choice, and Cheryl had seen no need to change them because Robert was gone.

The neighbor girl, Hannah, stood by the table—neatly set for four, though only Cheryl ate there—and gazed toward the brick fireplace, where Alice lay on the hearth, her inert white form almost covering the braided rug.

Cheryl knelt beside Alice. The dog looked up at her, chestnut irises rimming pools of blackness whose depths Cheryl could not plumb. “She’s suffering.”

“What’s wrong?” asked the girl.

“Old age, that’s one thing.” Cheryl reached for the wicker seat of a ladder-back chair. She rose slowly, putting too much weight on her arm and shoulder, but she couldn’t help that. At least she could still get up. “We knew this day would come. Great Pyrenees are prone to hip problems.”

“Prone?”

“Now Robert is gone,” Cheryl said, panting from exertion. “I’m left with a hundred-pound dog and no way to put her in the car.”

“I’ll help.” Cheryl finished standing up. She looked Hannah’s slender frame up and down. “I fear she’d be too much dead weight for the both of us.”

“Dead?”

“I don’t mean Alice is dead. She’s limp, too worn out to cooperate. Just a lump, really. A limp lump. But she needs the vet.”

“There’s a new one. I heard he’s nice,” said Hannah.

Cheryl hobbled to the telephone table. She lifted the phone and punched in the vet’s number. After four rings and a click, an artificial voice said, “Thank you for calling the Waukepaca Pet Clinic. Our staff are busy handling other calls.”

Staff? When did they get “staff”?

“If this is an emergency, hang up and call the Emergency Veterinary Practice.” The voice gave a Madison phone number. “Otherwise, stay on the line and . . .”

Cheryl frowned.

Hannah regarded her with wide eyes.

“They’ve put me on hold.”

“Oh.” The girl glanced at the great white creature covering the braided rug. “I hope it’s not too long.”

“Hello, this is the Pet Clinic. How can we help you?”

Cheryl smiled. “Meghan, is that you?”

“Cheryl? Why, who else would it be?”

“The recording says you have staff.”

“Just me. I was helping Doctor Patel manage a problem cat.”

“A cat? Doctor Woodson never needed help managing.”

“Course he did. You just didn’t see it.”

Cheryl rolled her eyes at Hannah.

“Now, what can I do for you?” the receptionist asked.

“I’m afraid we’ll need a house call,” Cheryl said. “Alice is down, and I can’t carry her to the car.”

“Isn’t there anybody who can help you?”

“No,” Cheryl said, with a glance at Hannah. “Not really. When we got Alice, there were two of us. We could lift her together. But now . . . .”

“I understand.” Meghan’s voice was soft. “See, Dear, thing is, we don’t do house calls.”

“When did that happen? Dr. Nagel made house calls.”

“Times change, that’s all I can say.” She sounds defensive.

“Not even for special cases?”

“I can ask, but—”

“Do that, Meghan. Please. Ask Doctor Patel.”

“Hold on.”

Cheryl caught a glimpse of herself and Hannah in the hall mirror, standing side by side, wearing identical frowns. The girl’s taking her cue from me. When did I become such a worry wart?

Alice lay on the rug, her position unchanged but eyes closed now, the mantel clock ticking over her head. Her left forepaw twitched, signaling sleep. Good for her.

Meghan came back. “Listen, Cheryl, here’s a number. We’re advising patients with immobile pets to call the Rolling Vets. They’ve got a fully equipped van.” She gave the number. Cheryl wrote it on a pad of paper by the phone’s charging station.

“Well,” Cheryl said, “how far do they have to come?”

“They’re out of Madison. But they respond really quick. Got cell phones, you know.”

“Oh, yes, everybody’s got cell phones.”

#

A few minutes later, Cheryl called Meghan back.

“Hello, this is the Pet Clinic. How can we help you?”

“The Rolling Vets ain’t rolling.”

“They ain’t—they’re not?”

“Not out this far,” Cheryl said. “Too late in the day to send the van. They offered to come tomorrow.”

There was silence on the line. “Meghan? You there?”

“You don’t think she can wait till tomorrow?”

Cheryl took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and counted.

“Cheryl, can Alice hold until tomorrow?”

“No. She. Can. Not.”

“Well, there’s the Emergency Clinic—”

“They’re in Madison, too, and they don’t even claim to roll.”

An expelled breath came from the other end of the line.

“Well, I don’t know—”

“You listen here, Meghan. I’ve got a nine-year-old Great Pyrenees who’s unable to stand up. She is suffering, and something needs to be done.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Let me talk to the doctor.”

After a few moments, a suave, accented voice came on the line. “This is Doctor Patel. How may I help you?”

Cheryl closed her eyes. Don’t blow this, he’s your only hope.

“Doctor, what made you become a vet?”

“Pardon—”

“Why did you choose to become a veterinarian?”

“Well, that should obvious, my dear lady. I wanted to help animals.”

“Good. Right answer. I’ve got an animal that needs help. She’s not coming to you, so you’ll have to come to her.”

“It’s—” The doctor’s voice faded as he turned away from the phone. “What time is it? We have, let’s see—okay, got it.” He came back to Cheryl. “I have one more appointment to do here. Have patience, and I will come to you in half an hour.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Cheryl replaced the phone in its charging stand. She turned her eyes upon Hannah. “The vet’s coming,” she said.

“That’s good.” The girl knelt by Alice and ran her fingers through the thick white coat.

“Don’t you have a better place to be? Aren’t your friends out playing?”

Hannah sighed. “I guess. If you’re sure you don’t need me.”

Cheryl mustered a smile. “It’s all right. You may go.”

Hannah gave Alice a tender pat, got to her feet, and walked out the door.

#

Doctor Patel knelt by Alice’s hindquarters and moved her hips with both hands. The dog whimpered.

“Mm.” Patel leaned forward and looked Alice in the face. The hip stress ended, she bore his scrutiny calmly.

He looked up at Cheryl. “Why did you not call sooner?”

His dark eyes, almost like Alice’s, were placid, not accusatory. “She’s had symptoms of hip dysplasia for a long time, I should imagine.”

“Would it have done any good? Calling sooner?” Cheryl bent to rub the dog’s head. “The old vet was aware of her situation. She’s been losing ground for months, and now is when she couldn’t stand up.”

The brown young man gave a thin smile. “It always becomes difficult, does it not?”

“Doesn’t get any easier when you reach eighty, either.”

Dr. Patel stood. “I can give her pills to ease the pain. But probably nothing will get her back on her feet. Her hips are used up. You cannot lift her. It would take two strong men.” He tipped his head toward the window, where snowflakes descended. “Sooner or later, she will need to go out and do her business, you know.”

“Yes.” Cheryl rubbed her brow. “I see.”

She gazed through the pane at the white flakes, then turned back to the vet. “Look around you, Doctor Patel. What do you see?”

He glanced at the antique sideboard with a china serving set displayed on its top, not a speck of dust; a neat row of family pictures hung on the wall; a coffee table with the current issues of Smithsonian and National Geographic.

“I see a well-ordered home,” he said. “Evidence of a life well lived.”

“Yes. And of enough income to maintain the order.”

“Of course.”

“My late husband and I believed in foresight. Planning. Care. Everything we did was . . . deliberate. Not one thing unplanned, unprovided for.

Except the dogs, Doctor. You would not believe the parade of hounds and mutts traipsing their inconvenient paws through this place, year in and year out. Decade in and decade out.”

“Your dogs were an element of disorder?”

She laughed. “Have you ever known one that was not, Doctor? You see, we loved dogs so much that we never managed to get an appropriate dog that would fit our lifestyle. We always dogged ourselves up on impulse, not by reason. We took the beast of the moment.”

“Indeed.” His eyes strayed to Alice, who now snored lightly on the rug. “Was she—?”

“We were in our mid-seventies. Humane societies and rescue leagues begin to look askance when you grow old. They fear to place an animal with . . . short-timers.”

The doctor nodded.

“There were some people we knew, who had to give Alice up. She was only a pup of about seventy pounds, but we understood she’d grow larger. And we knew how old we were. But we were seized by that blind irrationality. She needed us, we needed her. That was all there was to it. Only now, Robert is gone.”

Doctor Patel bowed his head in sympathy.

“There is a girl,” Cheryl said. “A sweet young thing, Hannah, who likes to visit. Let’s do this before she comes back.”

The doctor opened his bag and withdrew a syringe and a small bottle.

#

The rapping on the door frame was persistent.

Cheryl groaned and limped to the door. The morning sunshine made her squint. “Oh, it’s you.” She looked down at her lumpy old body wrapped in a cloth housecoat thrown over her nightgown, her callused feet in fuzzy slippers. “Sorry I’m in no state to invite you in.”

“Of course you can,” said Hannah. She marched past Cheryl and into the living-dining room. Cheryl had no choice but to follow.

“Now, young lady—” Hannah stood by the table, staring down at the hearth, where poor Alice had . . . .

“Mama said I should come over and keep you company. She said you’d be lonesome. Your face looks funny.”

“I’m sorry,” Cheryl whimpered. “I’m not myself. Can’t seem to stop crying.” Tears welled from her swollen eyes and leaked down her face. She pulled a Kleenex from a box and wiped her cheeks.

“Alice was old. It was her time to go.”

Cheryl nodded, unable to speak, as the tears kept rolling.

“Mama says three days is enough. You got to get dressed and go out.”

Cheryl stared at the child, so serious and adult.

“You’re ten years old and you don’t know what you are asking.”

“Yes I do. I’m asking you to get dressed and go out.”

“Why? Whatever for?”

“Because,” said Hannah, setting her mouth in a hard line.

“Everyone who was dear to me in this world is gone.” Cheryl raised her hand to the snow-clad window, as if her dear ones had escaped through it. “Most of them gone long ago. Robert held out longer than most. Then it was only Alice and me. Now she’s gone, too.” She sniffled and used the Kleenex to wipe her nose, aware that she was selling self-pity to an innocent child. She simply didn’t care. “So you see, there’s no reason to go anywhere or do anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. Mama says you gotta.”

#

“Been wonderin’ when you’d show up,” said Clarence Bennison as he rang up her purchases. “After all, a person’s got to eat. You usually come on Mondays.”

He slid a box of chamomile tea across the scanner, and it made a comforting little beep.

“Had some trouble over the weekend,” Cheryl said.

“Heard about your dog. Too bad.”

“Thank you.”

“We get so attached to them and all.” He stuffed her few items into a brown bag. “Still and all, it’s nice to see you back in circulation.”

“Well and good, but who knows how much longer?”

“Aw, now, don’t talk that way. Want some help gettin’ them groceries to your car?”

“No, thanks. I think I can manage.”

At least she could still walk and carry a sack of food. She shuffled out the door of Bennison’s Store and across the small parking lot toward her Buick LaCrosse. She watched her fur-booted feet as she progressed step by step, avoiding icy patches as best she could.

She really didn’t know why she was bothering to stock up on groceries. There was no reason, really, to go out. It was just that the neighbor girl had been so insistent.

A nearby squeal of over-revved tires startled her. A hard-luck Ford, its fender crumpled and taillight patched with red plastic tape, bounced out of the lot, turned right, rumbled away down the street.

Cheryl frowned. Be a fine thing if that noise had knocked me off my pins!

Shaking her head, she reached her car. She opened the back door and placed the brown bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat. She was about to open the driver’s door when a high-pitched sound made her look up again.

On the snowbank left by the parking lot plow sat a brown paper bag like the one she had just deposited; this one, however, rustled on a windless day. The sharp little sound came again, a whine.

Gingerly, so as not to lose her balance, she stepped forward, tipped the top edge of the bag, and looked inside.

It was a puppy. “Ooh, who are you? How did you come here?” She glanced down the street to where the battered Ford was turning the corner, headed for the highway.T

he tiny thing in the bag wriggled, its eyes closed. Its mouth worked constantly, automatically.

She lifted the ball of fur, tucked it in her coat next to her warmth, and got in the car.

Larry F. Sommers writes historical fiction, seeking fresh meanings in our common past.His debut novel, Price of Passage, came out in August 2022. He won Honorable Mention in The Saturday Evening Post’s 2018 Great American Story Contest for “The Lion’s Den,” a tale of childhood in the 1950s. He edited The Congregationalist, a national quarterly magazine, from 2009 to 2016 and worked 23 years as a writer, editor, photographer, writing coach, and public affairs consultant in a fast-paced environment punctuated by crisis communication events. He blogs weekly at https://LarryFSommers.com. A Vietnam-era veteran of the U.S. Air Force, he is active in church work and belongs to the Sons of Norway, the Authors Guild, the Wisconsin Writers Association, and two local writers’ critique groups. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife and dog.