Diner. Astrid.
He sat on it for thirty seconds and sent back:
Duke
Took you long enough. I'll be in and out. Won't bother your girl.
I left it.
That was six-fifteen. By eight, Duke was supposed to be back in his basement with my soldering iron and a beer he'd have lifted out of my fridge on the way through. He wasn't supposed to be sitting on the floor of my kitchen with my grandmother's dog dying under his hand.
Astrid was on her feet beside me. She had her coat buttoned before I had mine in my hand. She didn't ask what it was. She'd heard enough of the call.
"Penny," she said.
"Yeah."
"Let's go."
We went down the inside of the tower fast. I had the truck started before she shut her door. I drove with one hand on thewheel and one on the gear shift. Somewhere along the second mile of Route 23, her hand came across the console and landed on my wrist.
She didn't grip. She rested it there.
She kept it there the whole way.
I kept seeing Penny on the rug when I left tonight. Chin on her paws. Eyes on me while I put my boots on. She hadn't gotten up to say goodbye at the front door, and I'd registered it, and I hadn't stopped on it.
She'd been quieter at dinner on Friday. She hadn't finished her bowl.
She's an old dog, I'd thought.This is what an old dog looks like at the end of a week.
I gripped the wheel.
Astrid's thumb moved once along the inside of my wrist.
Duke had left the back gate open.
I cut the engine in the driveway and was through the gate before Astrid was out of the passenger seat. The kitchen light was on. The back door was unlatched. I came up the back step into the kitchen, and Duke was on the floor next to her, back against the cabinet, hand flat on her side.
He was talking to her.
"Old girl. Hey, old girl. He's coming. He's coming, Pen. You hang in there."
He looked up when I came through the door. His face was what twenty-eight minutes alone with a dying dog does to a man when the person who needed to be there finally walks in.
"Ford."
"Duke."
"I'm sorry, brother."
I put my hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his own for a beat, then slid out of the way.
I went down on my knees on the rug.
Penny lifted her head a quarter inch off the floor when she saw me. The tail moved once against the wood. Her gums were the color of paper. I put my hand on her side. Her ribs went in and out under my palm too fast and too shallow, the breath of an animal whose body was running on what it had left.
Astrid came through the door behind me.
