Part 4
“A week would make a difference.”
Grant nodded. Tessa tucked the clipboard against her side and went to answer the front-desk phone.
He shifted his foot carefully so he wouldn’t wake Toby.
Visits began to fit around his shifts. Some mornings they came before work, when the halls smelled of fresh mop water. Other days they arrived after the kennel meals, with Toby hurrying ahead at every familiar doorway. Grant kept an extra pair of gloves in the truck.
Piper was using her left leg more. When she tired, her hip rose unevenly, and Lydia showed him how soon she wanted an exercise session ended.
In the small treatment enclosure, Grant laid treats on the nonslip mat, only a few steps apart. Piper followed them at a deliberate pace. Toby accompanied her as though he had been hired to inspect the food.
At the third piece, he darted toward her right side.
Piper leaned into him. It was a small movement, but it put her shoulder between his mouth and the treat. She ate while he stood staring at the empty place on the mat.
From the doorway, Tessa laughed.
“Got outmaneuvered,” Grant told him.
Piper licked the last crumb from her lips. Grant held the next treat low, letting her come to his hand without stretching. She took it and remained beside his boot while he gave Toby one of his own.
Two afternoons later, Grant was adjusting Toby’s lead when the puppy dropped the old ball. Piper took it before either of them noticed.
Toby turned. She stood several steps away, watching him over the rubber.
Grant shortened the lead enough to keep their game slow. Piper made a crooked little circuit of the room, carrying the ball just beyond her brother’s reach. When she tired, she dropped it and went to drink.
Toby pounced on the ball, then looked around for someone to pursue.
Piper paid no attention. Grant waited beside the water bowl until she was ready to go back.
One afternoon he arrived without Toby. His shift had run late, and he’d come directly from the station.
Piper was already waiting at her door, ears forward.
“She picked out your truck before I heard it,” Tessa said.
Grant checked his pockets out of habit. No treats. No glove he intended to sacrifice. Tessa opened the gate, and Piper came straight to him anyway.
She put her head against his leg.
He reached behind her ear. This time, when she leaned hard enough to turn his wrist, he let his hand follow.
At home, Toby’s pale head vanished from the front window. Grant heard the scramble down the hall before he had his key out of the lock.
He came in talking about the shift, stopped halfway through a complaint about a report, and looked down at the puppy walking beside him.
Toby followed him to the refrigerator.
“Kitchen’s closed.”
The puppy backed up a few feet and sat where he could still monitor the shelves.
“That isn’t out.”
Grant carried the milk around him. On the counter, the radio sat beneath a film of kitchen dust. He couldn’t remember switching it on all week.
He put the milk away and left the switch untouched.
Later, he noticed the spare-room door standing open. He had gone in quickly to put away Boone’s leash, without looking through the rest of the box.
Now he knelt beside it and lifted the lid.
The collar was beneath the coiled leather. He had stored photographs and a spare clip underneath, along with the small belongings he had gathered from pockets and drawers after Boone died.
One photograph showed Boone stretched across most of the sofa. Grant occupied a strip of cushion at the edge, sitting crookedly to keep from sliding off.
He remembered trying to reclaim space. Boone had shifted just enough to make the effort useless, then grunted when Grant disturbed him.
Grant turned the picture facedown. A moment later, he turned it back.
A folded scrap fell from between two photographs. He opened it and found a reminder in his own handwriting.
New bed for Boone.
The old one had gone flat. Boone had abandoned it for the rug, and Grant had meant to pick up another on his way home. He had never done it.
He held the note by its creased edge. The letters were hurried, ordinary, squeezed onto a scrap that had probably been headed for the trash. He could no longer remember which afternoon he had written it.
The clinic was easier to recall: every tile, every sound. He had spent fifteen months arriving there whenever he tried to think of Boone.
Grant propped the sofa photograph against the box.
Toby came into the room carrying the ball. He placed it near Grant’s knee and waited. When Grant didn’t throw it, he folded himself against his leg.
Grant rested a hand on the puppy’s back and sorted a few more pictures. He laid the collar beside the open box rather than burying it again.
At the next visit, Piper walked farther without tiring. She guarded her final treat from Toby and later stretched out beside him while Grant and Tessa talked about the repaired kennel wing.
When it was time to leave, Tessa led Piper toward medical.
Grant kept the leash slack. Toby watched his sister go. She paused at the doorway, and he raised his head.
Then he looked up at Grant.
Grant moved his hand lightly along the lead. Toby turned with him and walked toward the exit. At the truck, Grant rubbed the thickening fur at his neck before lifting him inside.
The following morning, Toby hurried to Piper’s kennel and stopped.
She hadn’t come to meet him. Her head rose when Grant crouched, but her body remained on the bedding. Toby lowered himself beside the gate.
Tessa came from the treatment room.
“She wouldn’t finish dinner,” she said. “Lydia’s setting up to look at her.”
Piper moved her left leg a fraction and went still. Above the closed wound, the leg had swollen…
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