Bella

Bella stuck her head out the open car window and rested her chin on the door. The wind rushed through her tussled black waves and she closed her eyes for a moment before forcing them open again. She was exhausted, but she didn’t want to miss the views. Her eyes were heavy from the quick-moving air and the pain of a long life. Trees and people and cars became shapeless blurs as the car sped up and whirred passed them.

The vehicle slowed and gravel crunched under the tires as they turned into a parking lot. An indistinguishable voice crackled through a speaker beneath a tall, colorful sign.

“Two double cheeseburgers, a small vanilla cone, and a Diet Coke, please,” Bella’s human replied back to the speaker. “Don’t worry, my love, the Diet Coke is for me,” she said as she reached over to scratch underneath Bella’s barely lifted chin.

A white paper bag stained with grease passed through the human’s window. The smells coming from inside made Bella’s tail wag for a few seconds before it tired out. The car began to move again. The human held a slowly melting cone in her right hand as her left gently navigated to the park next door. She placed the dripping cone in the cup holder and opened the door to step out. Normally the human would not allow ice cream to drip all over the car, but today was different. A few seconds later, the passenger side opened and the human gently reached for Bella and set her down on the warm pavement.

It was 2 o’clock on a weekday and the park was nearly empty besides a couple of kids on the swings and a business-looking man hurriedly eating a bagged lunch on a picnic table. Bella limbered slowly behind her person who carried the delicious-smelling bag and the now half-melted cone. They didn’t walk more than fifty feet from the car before stopping to sit. Bella was thankful for the short jaunt and slumped down, her head resting on the human’s knee who sat cross-legged.

One cheeseburgers weas unwrapped and its meaty smell permeated the air around Bella’s nose. Cheese oozed out from under the bun and between the patties as steam rose towards the sky. The human held the cheeseburger within inches of Bella’s wet, black nose. Bella lifted her head slightly, looked at the only mother she can remember having, and asked with her eyes, as wide as they can go, if it was okay to take a bite.

“Yes, my love, it’s all yours,” Mother said.

Bella stared at the burger trepidatiously at first, took an apprehensive nibble, and another, and finally lifted her head enough for a big chomp. A ketchup- and mustard-soaked pickle slid out from underneath a patty onto the paper wrapping below. Bella licked that paper clean after swallowing the remains of the first cheeseburger, sour pickle and all.

“We should probably have dessert now before it melts to oblivion,” Mother said. It had been a humid summer so far, and there were no signs of it slowing. A soft, northern wind rushed through the trees and wrapped around Bella as tufts of fur stood up and danced with the breeze. Bella rested her head again on her human’s knee, while Mother held the vanilla cone up to Bella’s snout and purposely tapped it slightly against her nose. Bella instinctively stuck out her long tongue to clean the mess Mother had made, but after a few seconds she realized the cone was still lingering in front of her snout.

For me? Bella asked again with her eyes.

“Of course, my love. Go ahead, Bella.”

Her long tongue wrapped around the cone as the cold cream melted in her mouth. Each lick caused drops of vanilla ice cream to land on Mother’s jeans, but she didn’t mind. The light cream landing on Bella’s face stood out against her dark fur, even though it had become peppered with white and grey over the last few years. Bella’s sloppy licks turned to nibbles as she reached the crunchy cone. With her neck still supported against her human, she chomped the cone to the very bottom.

She looked up and her eyes, cloudy as they may be, said Thank you, Mother.

The human’s eyes turned red and started to leak. She smiled at her furry companion, remembering the very first moments the family brought her home. She was so small and so cuddly and so sweet. Every spring, fewer and fewer rabbits made a home in their yard, because they knew Bella was on alert and protective of her space. And fast, my God she was fast. Mother’s thoughts started to move from sweet memories of better times to the cold, sterile smell of an examination room where they first heard the devastating truth.

The human shook herself from her negative thoughts, promising herself she wouldn’t go there, not today. She stroked Bella’s head with her left hand as her right hand moved through the grass and bumped the second cheeseburger they had both forgotten about. Mother unwrapped the second burger and placed it in front of Bella’s head. Bella looked at the burger, then at her mother, and back down at the grass.

“It’s okay, my love, you can have this one, too.” Mother reached for her Diet Coke that was sitting in the grass and quickly becoming watered down in the sticky Minnesota heat.

Bella looked back at Mother before down at the burger. She took a small bite and a glob of ketchup fell from her mouth and onto the grass. The human laughed. Bella slowly chewed another bite and swallowed, before resting her head back down again. Her eyes said it all,

Mother, thank you, but I am tired. I want to go home.

“That’s okay, my love.”

Bella watched as the human gathered up the barely eaten second burger, the wrapper from the first, the greasy bag, and the watery soda and dropped them in a nearby trash can. The human called for Bella to follow her back to the car. Her legs shook as she slowly stood up and began to step towards the human, but the human stopped midway and turned back towards Bella.

“It’s okay, my love, I got you,” Mother said as she picked up Bella and carried her the fifty feet back to the car.

Bella curled up on the front seat and rode the 10-minute drive home with her eyes closed and the windows down. Her belly was warm and full. Bella knew she was back at home when she heard another familiar voice – the young human boy she had grown up with was waiting for them in their driveway.

“Hi, Mom! Hi, Bella!”

The boy opened the passenger side and laughed as he noticed tiny spots of ketchup and ice cream embedded in Bella’s fur.

“Did you have a good dinner, Bella girl,” he asked as he scooped her up from the passenger side seat.

Mother stared at them both, her baby holding her other baby. She held back tears; she had been trying to stay strong for the family.

“Take Bella inside and put her in her favorite spot, then go wash up. Dad will be home any minute, and the vet is coming at five.”

The boy’s smile melted to a look of staunch realization. He knew what was happening, it just seemed surreal. They knew it was the right thing to do, she was in so much pain, but it didn’t make the decision any easier.

Bella curled up in her favorite spot, right where the boy set her - the spot on the couch that gets the best afternoon sun. She was happy with her delicious dinner, but her eyes were heavy again. She looked at her family gathered around her and knew she was so very loved.

I am tired, and I want to go home.

With a full belly, Bella closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.