Part 6
Four months later, Thor still woke before dawn.
He no longer checked every room. Most mornings he stood beside Nathan’s bed until Nathan opened his eyes, then went to the kitchen and waited by his bowl with the blunt impatience of an old dog who had discovered breakfast arrived whether or not anyone had completed a mission.
His limp remained. The rehabilitation exercises strengthened his back legs, but cold mornings made him slow, and the veterinarian did not promise that medication would hold the pain forever. Nathan had learned not to translate every bad day into disaster. He recorded it, adjusted the walk, and called the clinic when the pattern changed.
Emma moved to Wilmington in August. Her room remained her room, though half the closet was empty and the desk no longer held three years of postponed plans. On Sundays she called from the laundromat because that was when she had time, not because Nathan’s schedule said she should.
The first time she came home, she found a printed care calendar on the refrigerator. Her name appeared once, in a square marked SUNDAY LUNCH—IF SHE’S HERE.
She circled it in red and wrote, I’M HERE.
That afternoon, they took Thor around the block before the rain returned. Nathan handled the level sidewalk himself. Emma walked on his right, hands in the pockets of her college sweatshirt instead of resting automatically on the push handles. Thor ranged to the end of the blue leash to investigate a row of wet mailboxes, then came back with a yellow leaf stuck to his nose.
“His standards have dropped,” Emma said. “He used to look for explosives.”
“Maybe it’s a dangerous leaf.”
At the corner, the sidewalk rose toward the apartment complex. Nathan’s shoulders were already tired from therapy that morning. He leaned forward and pushed twice, making less ground than he should have.
Emma stopped beside him. “Do you want help on the hill?”
Four months earlier, she would have taken the handles before asking. Four months earlier, he would have refused even after the chair began rolling backward.
“From the fire hydrant,” he said. “I can get us that far.”
She nodded and kept walking.
Nathan reached the hydrant with heat burning through his arms. He set his brakes. Emma stepped behind him, waited until he released them, and pushed for the final stretch. The chair moved steadily once her hands joined the work, and Nathan watched Thor’s tail ahead instead of measuring which yards belonged to whom.
Thor did not stay in heel position. He walked beside Emma for several yards, drifted back to Nathan, then paused to smell rainwater moving along the curb. The leash lay loose across Nathan’s palm.
Emma told him about assembling a nebulizer backward during her first hospital rotation, crying in the supply closet, then returning to fix it. Nathan listened without turning the story into advice.
“The patient got what she needed?” he asked.
“Eventually.”
“That counts.”
At the ramp, Thor waited while Nathan aligned his front casters. No one issued a command. They had repeated the route often enough that the dog now chose the slower pace himself.
Later, she stood at the kitchen counter cutting apples while Nathan studied the loose wheel on Thor’s food bin. Rain tapped the window. The apartment smelled of cinnamon and the chicken Emma had brought from a place near campus.
“You’re making it worse,” she said.
“I haven’t started.”
“Exactly. You’ve been staring at the screw for five minutes.”
Nathan held out the screwdriver. “You want the job?”
“No. I want you to admit you need a different screwdriver.”
He examined the stripped head and put the tool down. “I need a different screwdriver.”
Emma nodded solemnly. “Write down the date.”
Thor slept between them, his muzzle resting on Nathan’s right shoe. Not the numb left one he had guarded at the rehabilitation hospital. The right, because it was closer to the warm air from the oven.
The courthouse investigation eventually tied the device to an associate of a contractor awaiting sentencing in another federal case. An arrest followed. Nathan learned about it from Priya and declined three more interviews.
His days were measured now by pills hidden in a spoonful of pumpkin, the noon visit from Ms. Delgado, therapy on Tuesdays, Emma’s calls when she had time, rain that shortened a walk, and a dog who had begun to dream deeply enough for his paws to move in sleep.
A sanitation truck turned into the alley. Its hydraulic arm caught a bin and dropped it with a hollow crash.
Nathan’s shoulders jumped. His hand closed around the edge of the table. For an instant, the kitchen narrowed to sound and waiting.
Thor opened one eye.
Nathan looked toward the hook beside the back door. A folded raincoat hung there now. The harness was gone.
He lowered his hand to Thor’s gray muzzle. The dog did not rise, and Nathan gave no command. By the time the truck reached the end of the block, his fingers had stopped shaking.
Thor was already asleep again.