Tommy moved forward cautiously, pulling Crocket into his lap. His tears fell in patches of Crocket’s fur as he held him against his torso. But then he stood up quickly, walking from the room without a word to us. He just gave us one tear filled, stricken look and then yanked the door open. A faint sob escaped as the door shut behind him.

I could imagine Jacob here. I could feel him in the room with us. I could imagine his saying goodbye to the dog he’d begged Mom and Dad to get him when he was seven. It had taken three years, but Crocket was there when we woke up on Jacob’s tenth Christmas. Crocket was a tiny bundle of black and white fur with a big red bow tied around his neck.  I could almost see Jacob’s quiet tears sliding down his face, and I thought of all the times I’d seen him as a child crying, slipping under the covers with me, closing his eyes, his breathing hot and warm against my neck.  I could imagine him whispering, “I love you,” over and over again, like he did when he’d lay with Crocket on the floor, his lips brushing against the shaggy fur behind Crocket’s ear. But Jacob wasn’t here, and again I felt my heart pounding in my chest, unable to say goodbye. I felt that same uncontrollable sense that my world was crumbling before my eyes, and now I was losing the last part of Jacob that was still breathing. I didn’t know what would happen when we were all back in Mom’s car together.

I slid across the cool tiles towards Crocket and pulled his head into my lap like I’d done a thousand times since that first night I’d held him in my lap, the big red bow tied around his tiny neck. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held him like that.

She held my cheek with her palm.

“Be strong, honey.”

Mom’s eyes were full of tears.

“You, too.”

She squeezed my hand and kissed the back of my hand.

I unclipped the leather collar Dad had brought home one night after work when Crocket was still too small to wear it. He said it was a special collar for a special dog that had become part of the most special family ever.

As I held Crocket in my lap, I thought of all the times we’d all been together, those first seven years we’d had Crocket when dad would take us hiking and then bring us out to get ice cream. We’d been happy, the five of us, all together, laughing and playing games in the backyard. Then one day, it was gone. In one day, we were broken, and Crocket lay curled up at the bottom of Jacob’s bed, waiting for him to come home.

The vet shaved a small corner of fur on his front leg and told us that it would be quick, that it would be painless for him. Moments after she put the injection in, he’d be gone.

I didn’t believe her. I did not understand how one second Jacob’s dog would be lying beside me, his breath leaving hot condensation against my jeans, and in a split second he’d no longer be there. He’d no longer be breathing. I wondered for the hundredth time if it was like that for Jacob, quick and painless. I wondered if in the moment when it all ended Jacob felt us around him, if he knew we loved him, always.