Page 80 of Spiced!

But what I have never told anyone—because it sounds like a bid for sympathy, and I would rather be caught shoplifting than pitied—I keep a bag half packed. Not a real bag, just feelings shaped like one, ready to leave before anyone can ask me to. My mother taught me that, without meaning to, from three islands away, one missed birthday at a time.

“He likes you,” I told Diane, out loud, in the room, in English, in the present, where things were currently fine. “It’s a whole thing. You’re his now. I don’t make the rules.”

“Good,” Diane said, not looking up. “I accept.”

And Mofongo, who had never once in his short life questioned whether he was wanted, sneezed on her with his whole heart. She detached Mofongo from her hair with the ease of someone who had handled animals professionally for years, stood, and re-assembled her composure. “Room two. Dr. Davis will be right with you.”

Brendan stepped in before we could even get settled. He held a chart in one hand and had his professional mask securely affixed. He looked at me, then at Mofongo, then crouched down before he’d fully cleared the doorway.

Mofongo cocked his head, one ear flopping almost to the ground.

Brendan held out the back of his hand.

Mofongo sniffed it once, confirmed whatever he’d suspected, and allowed an ear scratch with gracious tolerance.

“He looks good,” Brendan said, standing.

“He ate a dish towel last week,” I said. “I don’t know what good looks like for him anymore.”

“Did he pass it?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Did you see a dish towel in his poop?”

“No, but he seemed fine.” I shrugged. “He was very pleased with himself about the whole thing.”

Brendan pecked a note in the computer chart. His face remained unmoved, unexpressive. I figured he’d been told stranger things in this room and knew how to hide his surprise.

“Watch for any lethargy or reduced appetite. Otherwise” —he glanced at Mofongo, who was currently investigating the baseboard—“he’s probably fine. Puppies eat things. It’s part of it.”

“The dish towel was mine,” I said. “My abuela gave it to me.”

“Did Mofongo know that?”

“He seemed unbothered by it. I don’t think he understands sentiment yet.”

Brendan’s lips finally quirked. “Then it’s probably not personal.”

Mofongo had worked his way to the corner of the room and was pressing his nose into the junction between the wall and the floor like some detective who had found a significant clue.

He sneezed. Then he pressed harder.

“Mofongo.”

He ignored me completely.

“He does that.”

“I know,” Brendan said. “He did it at his first appointment, too. He’s thorough.”

“He’s something.”

Brendan performed the rest of the exam with the firm, gentle attention I knew he offered all his patients. I stopped pretending I wasn’t watching as he checked ears and eyes and teeth. Mofongo submitted to the ears and the eyes with reasonable cooperation. When it came to his teeth, he squirmed like someone enduring something they found personally offensive but couldn’t argue their way out of. When the stethoscope appeared, Mofongo made his position on it immediately clear by attempting to eat it. Brendan deflected with barely an effort.

“He does that, too,” I said.

“Every time,” Brendan said, repositioning. “He’s consistent.”