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1Eloise

I push open the door of Uptown Veterinary Hospital and step outside into the cold January air.

The sky is covered with granite-gray clouds, so stony and dead they look like they could flatten the skyscrapers. It’s January 2nd. A new year. It’s supposed to be a day of new beginnings.

Instead, it’s an ending.

It’s seven blocks to my apartment, and each one feels like an eternity. Walton Doggins’s food will still be in its place in the cupboard. His toys will be on the couch where I left them. Bony fingers curl around my heart, squeezing it with every agonizing beat. I clutch the small carrier at my side—a purse, really, with a space cut out so Walton could stick his head through. I think of all the times I took him to Central Park in this bag, after he got too sick to go on walks.

When I reach my building, Hector is standing outside in his doorman’s cap and long black coat, smoking. He freezes when he sees me, then his gaze travels to the empty bag. His face falls.

“Oh no,” he says.

I nod.

“Why do you do this so many times, mija?”

I shrug. How can I explain that someone needs to care for the sick and elderly dogs that no one else wants? And someone needs to be there to hold their paw, so they won’t be alone when they pass. I never know the right words. There are a lot of things I don’t know how to say. So I don’t say anything.

Hector opens the door for me, and I step into the lobby. The fake Christmas tree is still up, lights twinkling. The reception desk is polished marble, and a pair of leather couches sits in the corner opposite, beneath some weird abstract painting that probably cost a fortune. If I hadn’t inherited a rent-controlled apartment on Central Park West from my Uncle Lenny (who’d inherited it from my grandfather), I’d never be able to afford to live here. And if my best friend, Rachel, hadn’t told me to create Silver Snoot Rescue and then used her influence on social media to get donations, I wouldn’t be able to care for so many old dogs. My side hustle, making specialty dog treats for an online pet bakery, Treats Gourmand, isn’t enough to cover all the vet bills.

I trudge past reception to the elevator and check my phone. I haven’t heard from Rachel in a couple of days. She’s been out of the country with her boyfriend, Diego, ringing in the New Year someplace warm and sunny in Mexico, where Diego is from.

I should tell her about Walton—she would want to know. But I think she might be on a plane back to the city right now.

I push the button, and the elevator doors open, taking me nine flights up to my floor. I step off into a hall with dark green carpeting and gold Art Deco-style lights on the walls. I can hear Miriam in 9A talking to her cats. Miriam is the only neighbor I know, and the only reason I know anyone else’s name in this building. I watch her cats for her when she goes to visit her mother in Utica. She’s extremely nosy and extremely talkative, which is great for someone like me who hates having to keep up a conversation, but also difficult because I never know how to get her to stop.

I pass 9B and the faint strains of a viola weave their way through the heavy wooden door. That’s where Mr. Bloom lives. He used to play in the New York Philharmonic—or that’s what Miriam says. But he got sick, and now he only plays at home. Mr. Bloom hates socializing as much as I do. Whenever I see him out in the park, when I’m with the Pack, we pretend we don’t know each other.

I hear the baby crying and a toddler screaming in 9C. 9D I’ve never seen but the air outside his apartment always smells like marijuana. 9E I nicknamed Soul Cycle—a lesbian power couple who are in offensively good shape. I always see them in matching, expensive workout gear when I’m taking the dogs out. 9F is Madame Boularès, a French widow who dresses in black and listens to a lot of Édith Piaf and Jacques Brel. I can hear the chorus of “La Vie en Rose” as I pass.

And then me. 9G.

The bag hanging from my shoulder feels heavy in its emptiness. My hand shakes as I slip the key into the lock. I hate this part. Coming home without one of them. My throat pinches as I turn the latch and open the door.

The sounds of Mozart waft down the long hall from the living room. The Colonel loves Mozart.

I put the bag down, take off my boots, and hang Walton’s leash on its peg. I have seven pegs in total, though only four dogs.

Three. I have three dogs now.

I pass the kitchen on my left and start down the hall to the living room, where the Pack is. The moment my feet creak on the hardwood floor, I hear the thump that signifies Charleston has become aware of my presence. The next thing I see is a roly-poly black pug with a graying chest and muzzle coming at me as fast as his chubby little legs can carry him. Charleston is mostly blind, but his nose is as sharp as a puppy’s. He barrels directly into my legs, and I drop down to stroke his ears, soft as silk. Charleston sniffs at me, then sniffs around expectantly. My chest aches. He’s looking for Walton.

“No buddy,” I say quietly. “He’s not coming back. Let’s change your diaper.”

Hazelnut is just waking up from her snooze on the large dog bed in the living room when I enter. Hazelnut is an eleven-year-old long-haired dachshund and the queen of the house. She kept getting returned by her adopters. “Mean,” people called her. But they were wrong—she’s not bossy, just particular. She likes things how she likes them.

Her soft, caramel-colored coat gleams in the cold light coming in through the windows. My corner apartment is huge, especially by New York standards. When I lived here with Uncle Lenny, everything was so sterile and bland. Ikea couch, basic coffee table, bookshelves full of dusty leather-bound tomes. Uncle Lenny was a lawyer.

Now, the furniture is all vintage and mismatched, the books are dog-eared romances and mysteries, and every surface is covered with plants. There’s a spider plant in a smiley face mug, two enormous dracaenas, a creeping fig, some peace lilies, a couple of flamingo flowers, a Boston fern, and all matter of succulents that line my windowsills, or sit in large ceramic pots along the walls, on side tables, or tucked on the bookshelves. Nothing toxic, of course.

I pick up Hazelnut and nuzzle into her softness. She starts to lick my face rapidly. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying again.

A low moan brings my attention to the Colonel, sprawled out on the plaid blanket that covers one side of my 1970s rust-colored couch. He’s a German shepherd, my newest adoptee with only eight months in the Pack, and the youngest at nine years old. The Colonel is diabetic but the sweetest old man you’ll ever meet.

“Hey Colonel,” I say, carrying Hazelnut over to sit beside him. Charleston follows but misses the mark and trots past us into the wall before righting himself and finding his way back to my feet. I give a watery chuckle.

I take a moment just to be with the Pack. To smell the Colonel’s dog breath, to listen to the snorts of Charleston, to feel the skin on my cheek begin to chap thanks to Hazelnut’s excessive grooming. I feel the absence of Walton, the space he’s left behind. But I also feel his presence, the energy that remains from him. Like I can still feel Ginger Doggers and Summer and Lucky Lou.