Separation Anxiety

I'm watching Bogie scatter about showing signs of absolute diress. He wanders in and out of my mom's garden, becoming almost invisible behind giant aloe plants. Wimpering, moaning, looking for his friend. The whimpers turn into howls, deep and low. Phil has taken Hunter with him to the nursery. He hates taking Bogie because he sheds, leaving tufts of white Labrador fur stuck on all bits of his truck. Phil used to be quite meticulous about his Ford F150, cleaning the interior with Q-Tips and Armor All. Then some chick threw up in the backseat and it was never really the same.
Bogie doesn't know where they've taken Hunter. So he sits next to the sliding glass door, his haunches laying sideways because he's so fat, and stares into the house waiting for some sign of his friend. "I hope they die together," I say to Tyler. Because I cannot imagine the gut wrenching dog agony either one would go through if left alone on a more permanent basis. Those little fuckers love each other more than they love us. And rightly so. We abandon them for long stretches of time, leaving some classic rock station blaring at what is probably an obnoxious level for their kanine hearing. They're supposedly brothers but looking nothing alike. Hunter doesn't even look like a purebred - he's the one my mom got at a discounted price because the breeder supposedly misplaced his official papers.
I let Bogie cry away because in a strange way I am fascinated by whatever form of emotion he is experiencing; that this compost eating, banana thief is capable of missing something so much.
My eighty year old landlady lost her husband last year. Remnants of whatever illness he ended with sit in the garage alongside wrenches and a rusty bicycle. She sees her kids often, volunteers at Cedars Sinai, and is arguably more active than myself. But somedays I catch her looking out of her screen door adjacent to our screen door and she looks terribly sad. I wonder if she wishes for death and I wonder if her days feel long.