He shrugs. “Old habits die hard.”
The vet clinic smells like antiseptic and anxiety. The tech takes one look at Frank and ushers us into a room.
“You his people?” Her voice is clipped and all business.
I hesitate. “Apparently.”
She takes him back for X-rays and leaves us in the main room. Noah leans against the counter while I sit in the vinyl chair, arms crossed tight.
“You’re quiet.” He nods in my direction.
“I’m usually quiet.”
He smiles. “You forget that I’ve known you for over two decades. You’re only quiet when you’re uncomfortable. You didn’t have to bring him in, you know. Or let me come with you.”
“I know.” I fix my eyes on the generic art in the waiting room so I can avoid his gaze. A watercolor landscape—meant to soothe, I guess, though the horizon line was crooked and the trees bledinto the sky like someone gave up halfway through. Owen and I used to joke that waiting room art was the visual artist’s version of a novel that never left someone’s hard drive.
I still found myself mentally tracing the brushstrokes, wondering what the artist was trying to get right. Or what they’d given up on.
“But it was either this or leave him to become an allegory in the road. And there’s no way I was lifting him into the car without you.”
“Still,” his voice is gentle, “not everyone would’ve stopped.”
My eyes never leave the abstract beach scene on the wall. “I know what it’s like to lose your person and not know where to go.”
“I know what that’s like too.”
The vet comes back a few minutes later, cheerful and brisk.
“Poor boy’s leg is sprained. I would guess he’s around eight years old. No chip and no tag.” Frank hobbles over to me in his bright green bandage and rests his head in my lap.
“Do you need me to call a shelter?”
I don’t hesitate. “No. He’ll be coming home with me.”
The vet’s lips twitch up in a smile before she turns back to her other patients. The receptionist sends us on our way with pain meds and a bill.
Back in the truck, Noah carefully settles Frank into the back seat again.
“He’ll be fine.”
I nod.
“And so will you.”
I don’t answer. But the part of me that felt something when he lifted that dog, or smiled in that slow, quiet way, stirs a little.
And I blame the hormones.
And the packages.
And grief.
Mostly grief.
Chapter Five
Do you believe you deserve love? Not like from your kids or your cats, but actual love?
