The Next Person You Meet in Heaven(15)

“I have to figure out work.”

“But I don’t know anyone here.”

“I know.”

“When are we going home?”

“We’re not.”

“Why? I don’t have any friends! I want to go home!”

Annie’s mother swallowed and rose silently. She scraped her plate into the sink. Then she walked to the bedroom, just a few feet away, and shut the door.

The next morning, she woke Annie early and made scrambled eggs with shredded cheese. She pushed them onto Annie’s plate without comment. When Annie finished, Lorraine announced, “We’re going for a ride.”

It was raining lightly, and Annie kept her arms crossed the entire trip, her mouth in a scowl. Eventually, the car pulled in to a dirt parking lot, with a one-story building and a blue-and-white sign that read PETUMAH COUNTY ANIMAL RESCUE SHELTER.

They walked towards the back. Annie heard barking. Her eyes widened.

“Are we getting a dog?” she asked.

Her mother stopped. Her face seemed to crumble. She bit her lip and blinked back tears.

“What’s the matter, Mommy?” Annie asked.

“You’re smiling,” her mother said.



That day, Annie walked past dozens of rescued or abandoned dogs. She watched them leap and paw at the cage doors. The woman running the shelter said Annie could choose any dog she wanted, so Annie studied them carefully. She played with several, letting them lick her cheeks and fingers. At the end of a row, she saw a cage with three cocoa-and-white puppies. Two ran for the door, barking on their hind legs. The third remained in the back. It wore a plastic funnel around its neck.

“What’s that?” Annie asked.

“An Elizabethan collar,” the woman said. “To keep the dog from biting or licking.”

“Biting or licking what?” Lorraine asked.

“Her wound. She needed surgery when we found her.” The woman jangled her keys. “A tough story.”

Lorraine touched Annie’s shoulder. “Come on, sweetie, there’s others to look at.”

But Annie was fixated. She felt something for this creature, wounded as Annie was wounded. She tilted her head the way the dog’s head was tilted. She made small kissing sounds. The dog stepped forward.

“Do you want to play with her?” the woman asked.

Annie’s mother shot her an annoyed look, but the woman opened the cage door.

“Come here, Cleo,” she said. “Someone wants to meet you.”



As Annie recounted this story to the old woman, the image appeared before them. The shelter owner had long, silver-tinged hair and wore blue jeans, black sneakers, and a faded flannel shirt. She smiled as she handed the collared dog to Annie.

“Is that you?” Annie asked.

“Yes,” the old woman said.

Annie looked around.

“Where’s my mother? She brought me here.”

“This is your heaven, Annie, and where it intersects with mine. Others are not included.”

That made Annie hesitate. She braced herself.

“Did I do something to you?”

“Well, yes.”

“Am I here to make amends?”

“Amends?”

“For my mistake. Whatever it was.”

“Why do you assume it was a mistake?”

Annie didn’t say what she was thinking: that her whole life, she’d been making mistakes.

“Tell me about Cleo,” the old woman said.



The truth was, for nearly a year, Cleo, part beagle, part Boston terrier, was Annie’s primary companion. Lorraine could only find part-time work, morning shifts at an auto-parts factory; she was gone by the time Annie woke up and didn’t return until the afternoon. Annie hated having to call her mother every morning and tell her that she’d eaten breakfast. She especially hated hanging up and being alone. With Cleo, there was finally another presence in the trailer—a furry, foot-tall presence, with floppy brown ears and a mouth that curled like a smile beneath her muzzle.

That first day after the shelter visit, Annie poured a bowl of cereal for herself and a bowl of pellets for her new dog. She watched Cleo try to eat with the awkward collar. The surgery wound near her shoulder was still red. How did that happen? Annie wondered. Did she run into something sharp? Did another dog attack her?

Cleo whined as the collar blocked her access. Annie was not supposed to take it off; her mother had told her six times. But the dog looked at Annie as if begging for help, and Annie felt so bad that she leaned over and, with her good hand, undid the clasp. Cleo surged to the bowl.

When all the pellets were eaten, Annie tapped her thighs, and Cleo scrambled her way. She crawled into Annie’s lap and sniffed her splinted fingers. Even when redirected, the dog returned to Annie’s injury, licking and poking it with her muzzle.

“You want to see?” Annie said. She took her arm out of the sling. Cleo licked the skin around her wrist and whimpered. Something stirred inside Annie, as if the dog understood more than a dog should.

“It still hurts,” Annie whispered. “And I don’t even know what I did.”

She realized she was crying. Perhaps because she had said the words out loud. I don’t even know what I did. The more Annie cried, the more the dog whined with her, lifting its snout to lick the tears away.