Dust to Dust

*Possible trigger warning: The following content includes reference to abuse and some violence. While not incredibly graphic, reader discretion is advised*

We buried him underneath the pear tree. It’s a beautiful spot, almost at the edge of our property. The tree stands on the top of one of the rolling hills that dominate our land, about a quarter of a mile from the boundary with the Martin farm. Some days, especially in the autumn, it looks like something out of a storybook. Golden waves of earth, gradients of crimson, auburn, and yellow leaves, the Alleghenies visible in the distance. Stunning. It seemed like the perfect place to put him.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time below the pear tree. Sometimes up in it, though I didn’t climb so much as I got bigger. Charlie and I would walk the mile or so from the house and spend most of the day up there. I’d bring my book and stay for hours, sometimes reading, sometimes just daydreaming, sometimes napping after eating enough pears to make me sick. It had always been my sanctuary. Mama liked to say the tree, Charlie, and I had grown up together.

Charlie joined the family when I was about six years old. Pop took me to the pound; told me I could pick out any one I wanted. Mama couldn’t come with us; she had been laid up in bed all day. I remember wishing she had been there to help me choose. I had been asking for a dog for years, but Pop had always said no. Looking back, I think Charlie was more of a bribe than an apology, but at the time I didn’t think twice about it. I was just so excited to finally get a puppy.

Charlie looked a little out of place in the pound. There were lots of adorable mutts, a few full bred dogs, and then there was Charlie. He couldn’t have been more than four months old, but he was already missing an eye. His fur was patchy, covered in scratches. Something was oozing from his good eye. He was, without a doubt, the mangiest mutt in the place. All I saw when I looked at him was a survivor. I fell in love with him instantly, and to Pop’s dismay, he was the dog we went home with.

Charlie turned out to be a real good dog. We were inseparable from day one. I trained him, fed him, and groomed him until his coat started filling out and getting shiny. He slept in my bed and followed me wherever I went. Mama said when I was at school he’d sit out on the front porch and refuse to move until he saw me coming up the gravel road, at which point he’d take off running and almost knock me down in greeting. At night, when the yelling started, and the sound of things breaking, I’d hold Charlie close and let his fur soak up my tears. I didn’t want to feel like a crybaby, but I figured it didn’t count if only Charlie was there to see.

Mama would never say, but she loved Charlie near as much as I did. She tried to look out for him, and he always returned the favor. Pop hated him. Charlie hated Pop right back. He would growl at Pop sometimes, and whenever Pop was in the room Charlie laid his ears low on his head and would just stare at him. Pop said Charlie was a mean old mutt, but he was only mean to Pop.

Mama was the one who planted the pear tree. Pop told her it wouldn’t take to the soil, that she had a black thumb and there was no way it’d ever grow. That a pear tree on a dairy farm was the stupidest thing he ever heard of. If it did grow, according to him, she’d never get a single pear off it. Pop always was underestimating Mama. They never talked about it, or at least I didn’t hear them if they did, but I think it irked Pop to no end that the tree was such a success. At any rate, that’s what started the argument that night.

Charlie and I had been hiding out at the tree the whole day, until the stars had taken over the sun’s watch in a sky of deep indigo. We stayed out there as long as we could, and when we finally headed back it was under the eye of the harvest moon, full and bright in the heavens. We didn’t normally stay so late, but Pop had been in a fantastically bad mood. By the time breakfast was over, Mama was sporting a black eye. When he stormed out to see to the cows, Mama packed Charlie and I enough food to last the day and told me to make myself scarce for a while. I took off with Charlie and didn’t look back.

I intended to sneak back in that night. I hoped Pop was asleep, that he wouldn’t notice Charlie and I as we made our way back into the house. I had brought some perfectly ripe pears back for the fruit bowl though, so I had to stop by the kitchen. Where Pop was waiting.

Mama was nowhere to be seen. He took one look at the pears in my hand and started toward me, cussing and yelling. Charlie ran up and went for his ankles but Pop kicked him, hard, and he didn’t move again. I backed away, apologizing and closing my eyes. Sometimes it was better if I didn’t see it coming. But before I felt anything, a sound so loud in the small space rang out and I clapped my hands over my ears. There was Mama, shotgun in hand. There was Pop, not moving, on the ground.

We buried him under the pear tree, under the light of the harvest moon. Charlie came with us, a little banged up but no worse for the wear. It took nearly all night, but when the sun started yawning and stretching up over the Alleghenies, Pop was six feet under and Mama, Charlie and I were free.

Mama and I had a story ready, if anyone ever came looking for Pop, but no one ever did. Turns out, he was the mean old mutt, not Charlie. No one missed him now he was gone, least of all me and Mama. We ran the dairy farm fine on our own. I asked her once, what made her finally do it. She got quiet for a while, and finally she told me she guessed she had just needed time to gather her courage. We never talked about it again, after that.

Charlie and I still spend a lot of time under the pear tree. I like to talk to Pop, tell him how many pears are growing, how good me and Mama are doing. I ask him what its like under the ground, and tell him I hope he gets nice and cold. Charlie’s favorite spot to relieve himself happens to be right on top of Pop. I make sure Pop knows.

We don’t eat the pears anymore. Mama and I figure Pop’s wickedness probably poisons the fruit. Even so, every year the tree grows taller and stronger, a lone sentinel in the lush hills of our land.

Once a refuge, now a headstone.