Beau had belonged to someone who’d died in a construction accident so random and pointless that my brain still couldn’t process it as real. One day they were there. The next they weren’t. And Beau had been left standing in the apartment, looking at the door, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming home.
I could’ve put the dog down or given him away, but how could I do something like that?
So now I had a Yorkie who thought he was my size and a hole in my heart that didn’t get smaller no matter how much time passed.
The park absorbed us into its early evening rhythm like always. I was beginning to understand Boston in small ways. Which vendors packed up early. Which paths stayed quiet even when the weather was good. How the light slants through the trees and makes everything look softer than it was during the day.
Beau stopped to investigate a patch of grass with the focus of someone conducting important research. I came to a stop and let him work. Nobody bothered us. People gave us space. My size ensured it, and the fact that I didn’t make small talk.
This was the one part of my day with no performance required. No positioning reads to make or linemates to learn. Coaches weren’t watching to see if I was integrating. If the trade had been a mistake.
Just me and a dog who didn’t know someone was gone.
The path curved ahead, opening into a wider section with benches scattered along the edge, overlooking the river. Most were empty.
Haley sat on a bench with a sketchpad open on her knee, her pencil moving in small strokes I could see even from a distance.She hadn’t noticed me yet. Her attention was down, completely absorbed in whatever she was drawing. This was the same type of focus she brought to footage. The rest of the world had gone quiet and this was the only thing that mattered.
I could take another path and loop back the way I’d come to avoid this entirely.
Beau had already decided. He pulled toward her with the determination of someone who’d spotted exactly where he wanted to be. The leash went taut. I let him lead, a choice I made without analyzing why I was making it.
She looked up when we were a few feet away and saw me first. Then she saw Beau. Her gaze remained on the dog.
Beau reached her shins and jumped, his front paws only reaching halfway to her knees. He made the small yipping sound he did when he wanted something and believed he was entitled to get it.
“Oh my god,” she said. “He’s so cute.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
She looked up at me, smiling. “Can I pet him?”
I nodded.
She set the sketchpad aside and leaned forward, her hands out. Beau launched himself onto the bench and clambered directly into her lap, circling twice before settling.
He looked up at her with complete adoration.
Traitor.
I stood with the leash in my hand and watched my dog choose someone other than me.
She scratched behind his ears, talking to him in the voice people used with animals when they actually liked them. “What’s your name, little guy? Are you ferocious? You look ferocious.”
“Beau.”
“That’s a good name.” She was still talking to the dog, not me. “What kind of dog are you?”
“Yorkie. He’s small for the breed. He was the runt of the litter.”
“He’s perfect.” She looked up. “Does he travel with you during the season?”
“No.”
“That must be hard.”
“I have someone reliable who stays with him. Beau knows the routine.”
She ran her hand down the dog’s back. He stretched into it, shameless, before rolling onto his back and sticking his tiny feet up into the air, waiting for belly rubs. “This little guy would be hard to leave.”
