The moment I said it, the air in the room changed. It was the absence of a sound, the hush before something catastrophic, like when a train stops too suddenly, and everyone waits for the aftershock.
Emily said nothing. She just stood, came over, and put her hand on my shoulder, the touch gentle and absolute. Not a hug—no sympathy gestures, no fucking platitudes—just the human contact you give a dog with a broken leg, to let them know the pain is real and noticed.
I felt the tremor in my neck, the tears coming before I could even try to fight them. I didn’t want to cry in front of her. I didn’t want to cry at all. But the dam was gone, and the water was everywhere.
For a minute, I couldn’t breathe. I tried to curl in on myself, but Emily’s hand stayed firm, not letting me collapse all the way. I felt Sergeant press her body into my leg, her nose wedging between my calf and the chair. It was a ridiculous tableau—tough guy biker sobbing like a child between a woman and a blue-nosed pit bull.
Eventually, I found the bottom of it. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and tried to laugh, but it came out as a choking sound. “Sorry,” I said. “This isn’t how I planned to spend the evening.”
Emily smiled, and it was the first time I’d seen it without an edge. “You think anyone ever plans this shit?” She squeezed my shoulder and let go, but stayed close.
I tried to explain. “I thought if I got the dog for her, she’d… I don’t know. I thought maybe things would get easier. Maybe she’d have something to look forward to.”
Emily shook her head. “You were trying to save her. That’s never stupid. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.”
I nodded, letting that settle.
Sergeant whined again and pawed at my knee, desperate for any kind of signal. I scratched behind her ears, and she stilled, her whole body vibrating with what felt like empathy.
“I can’t take care of her,” I said, motioning to the dog. “Not now. I barely have a place to sleep. Everything’s fucked.”
Emily sat on the floor in front of me, crossing her legs, eye-level with both the dog and me. “You can. And you will. I’ve seen people in worse shape than you get their shit together for a creature who depends on them. This dog doesn’t need you to be a hero. She just needs you to show up.”
I let Sergeant lick my hand, then I let her head rest there, heavy and warm. For the first time since the call, I felt the ache in my shoulders start to let go.
I looked at Emily, who was still sitting, waiting for me to decide.
“You got somewhere to be?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
She shook her head. “No onewaits up for me.”
“I could use some company,” I said, and realized I meant it.
“Then you’re in luck. I have no social life and an entire freezer full of Lean Cuisines. We can heat up three, pretend it’s gourmet, and not talk about your mother unless you want to.”
I almost smiled.
Emily stood, went to the door, and unlocked it. “Let’s get out of here before you decide to surrender the dog again.”
We walked out into the parking lot together, the heat a little less oppressive now. Sergeant trotted at my side, ears perked, tail uncertain. Emily didn’t reach for my hand, but she walked close enough that if I tripped, she’d be there to catch the fall.
At the car, she turned to me, her face lit by the gold wash of the setting sun. “You’re not alone, Dean. Unless youwant to be.”
I looked at her, at the dog, at the desert sky above us. The world felt changed—not easier, not better, but at least not as empty.
I nodded, reached for the driver’s side, and waited for her to get in.
6
Dean
By four in the afternoon, my kitchen table was a disaster area—cordons of paperwork fanned out like a forensic diagram, the bodies labeled: Funeral Home Estimate, County Death Certificate, Victim Advocate Form, Los Alamos PD’s “next steps” checklist, each page smudged where I’d pressed the heel of my palm too hard trying to keep my handwriting straight. The rest of the apartment was silent, the kind of hush that rang in your ears after a live round fired in a tunnel. Only the dog’s breathing and the brittle tap of sun against the glass. Three days had passed, and I’d yet to get my payback.
Sergeant had learned the new perimeter fast. She took up sentry under my feet, chin down, side pressed to thespindle of the chair like a sandbag against collapse. The first night home, she’d pissed the kitchen tile, then crawled into the bathtub to wait for judgment. After that, she made it her business to guard me, maybe figuring I needed more help than anyone else in the unit.
The phone went off again, another jolt against the tabletop, lighting up with the Santa Fe area code. I let it ring, counting out the seconds. I’d learned in the last forty-eight hours that nothing good arrived with a 505 prefix, not unless it was a pizza or a bill collector with a forgiving streak.
Instead, I flipped through the envelopes on the table. Half the names were from people I barely knew—insurance adjusters, strangers with tidy script who signed “With Deepest Sympathy” like it was a legal requirement. But the other half were from old friends of Ma’s, ladies she’d worked with at the college lab or dragged to Mass on Christmas Eves when I was a kid. One had slipped a ten-dollar bill inside her card—“for coffee and pie, in memory of sweet Del”—and I nearly lost it right then, over the taste of pie that would never land in my mother’s mouth again.
