Page 29 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
When she gets there, the dog is gone.
Her heart begins to race. “Cleo?” she yells. “Cleo?”
She runs the length of the fence. Nothing. She runs back. Nothing. She runs up the hill to her bicycle. Nothing. She spends the next hour circling the same streets, tears burning her eyes, yelling Cleo’s name and praying she’ll hear barking in return.
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 awoman.”
“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.”
