The Next Person You Meet in Heaven(17)

Finally, knowing her mother will be back soon, she pedals home, sobbing. When she reaches the trailer, she stops. She exhales. There, sitting against the door, is Cleo, her leash trailing like a leather snake.

“Oh, Cleo, come here!” Annie says as the dog races to her, leaping into her grasp and licking the mulch on her arms. This is better, Annie thinks, a dog who loves me, a dog who’s happy to see me, better than those girls and their stupid lipstick, better any day of the week.





The Second Lesson




Annie stared at the old woman in the coat.

“Are you saying …?”

“I’m Cleo.”

“But you’re a woman.”

“I thought this form would be easier.”

“The shelter owner. I asked if that was you—”

“She was holding me. You asked if ‘that’ was me. Or I thought that’s what you asked. Sorry. We often think things are about us when they are not.”

Annie studied the woman’s sagging skin, the sloped nose, the gaps between her teeth.

“Cleo,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“We’re communicating.”

“We always communicated. Didn’t you know when I was hungry? When I was scared? When I wanted out?”

“I guess,” Annie said. “And you? You understood when I spoke to you?”

“Not your words. But your intent. Dogs hear differently than humans; we detect emotion in your voices. Anger, fear, lightness, heaviness—I could tell those from your sound. I could smell your day on your skin. What you ate. When you’d showered. The times when you sprayed your mother’s perfume on your wrists. Remember? You would sneak into her room and sit by her mirror and hold your hand out for me to sniff?”

Annie stared hard into Cleo’s eyes, trying to imagine the rest of her, her cocoa fur, her thin, floppy ears. She recalled the things Cleo recalled. She recalled Cleo getting older. She even recalled the day Cleo died, driving to the vet’s office in her mother’s car, a sluggish Cleo breathing slowly in her lap. But she did not know how these memories could matter now.

“Why are you here, Cleo?” Annie asked.

“To teach you something. Each soul you meet in heaven does the same.”

“So animals have souls?”

Cleo looked surprised.

“Why wouldn’t they?” she said.



The landscape suddenly shifted. They were out of the trailer, away from the abandoned house. They were floating now in a pale green sky, atop what appeared to be a massive mattress, with orange sheets and pink pillows that looked like small hills.

“Wait,” Annie said. “This is my old bed …”

“That’s right.”

“It’s huge.”

“Well, that’s how it looked to me. I had to run and leap when you called me.”

“Why are you—”

“Loneliness, Annie. That’s what I am here to explain. You suffered it. You tortured yourself over it. But you never understood it.”

“What’s to understand about being lonely?” Annie snapped. “It’s terrible.”

“Not always. Do you think, if you hadn’t felt so lonely, you would have chosen me at the shelter? Or taken off my collar to let me eat that first morning? Your loneliness gave me a home. And happiness.

“Remember what I said about empathy? It works both ways. I was wounded. Different. And you felt …”

Annie glanced at her detached left hand.

“Wounded,” she whispered. “Different.”

“And …?”

“Alone.”

The woman nodded towards the giant pillows, and Annie saw a thousand nights of her childhood, cradling her beloved companion.

“Not alone,” Cleo said.



The landscape changed once more, back to the checkerboard lawns Annie had seen earlier and the countless dogs waiting patiently by the doors.

“Have you ever considered how many living things there are on earth?” Cleo asked. “People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Trees. It makes you wonder how anyone could feel lonely. Yet humans do. It’s a shame.”

She looked to the sky, now a deep shade of purple. “We fear loneliness, Annie, but loneliness itself does not exist. It has no form. It is merely a shadow that falls over us. And just as shadows die when light changes, that sad feeling can depart once we see the truth.”

“What’s the truth?” Annie asked.

“That the end of loneliness is when someone needs you.” The old woman smiled. “And the world is so full of need.”



With that, all the doors on all the lawns swung open, revealing countless grim-faced people, children on crutches, adults in wheelchairs, soldiers in dirt-stained uniforms, widowed women in veils. Annie sensed they were all in need of comfort in some way. The dogs sprang to them, tails wagging. They licked and nuzzled the sad people and were embraced and cradled in return. The grim faces melted into grateful smiles.

“This is my heaven,” Cleo said.

“Watching people come home?” Annie asked.

“Feeling the joy when they do. Souls reuniting. It’s something divine.”

“But it happens every day.”