She was on the floor at Penny's hip in two steps. Her hand was on Penny's belly first. Then her gums. Then she lifted the soft fur behind the ear and pressed two fingers under the jaw for a pulse I could already see in the side of Penny's throat from where I was kneeling.
She looked at me.
She wasn't a vet for that second. She was a woman who'd kissed me an hour ago, and she was telling me what she had to tell me without making me ask her to say it out loud.
"Her belly's distended. Her gums are white. She's bleeding internally. It's a tumor on the spleen. They rupture. It's what takes old goldens. She wouldn't have known until today. None of us would have."
"How long?"
She didn't answer right away. Her thumb stayed against the soft fur at Penny's ear.
"Astrid. How long?"
"Minutes."
I closed my eyes.
"Hudson Valley is forty minutes. Even if Sof opened the surgical suite for us tonight, it's forty minutes. The shock would take her before we cleared the bridge."
I opened my eyes.
"I'm so sorry."
Penny was looking at me. Her eyes had the same soft brown they always did. Twelve years of brown, the same brown she'd looked at my grandmother with, the same brown she'd looked at me with the first morning I walked into the kitchen after the funeral and didn't know what to do with my own two hands.
I slid my arms under her.
"C'mere, Pen."
I lifted her into my lap. She weighed less than she should have. She'd been losing weight all week, and I hadn't seen it. I sat back on my heels with her in my lap and got her head settled against the inside of my elbow. Her tail thumped against my knee one time. She let out a breath against my chest.
"Hey, old girl."
She watched me.
"You did so good, Pen. You did everything right. You took care of her, you took care of me, you did the whole job. You hear me? You did the whole job."
The tail moved a quarter inch. Not a thump. Just the intent of one.
Astrid had her hand on Penny's flank. Her other hand came to the back of my neck. I felt it land. I didn't lean into it. I didn't have to. It was there.
"You're a good girl, Pen. You're the best girl. You were Grandma's best girl, and you were my best girl, and there isn't gonna be another one of you. Not in this lifetime. You hear me?"
Her breath went out.
She didn't take the next one.
I held her against my chest with my hand at the soft spot behind her ear where she'd liked it her whole life. I held her there a long time after the last breath, because no part of me was willing to be the man who set her down first.
Astrid's hand stayed on the back of my neck.
I didn't know how long we stayed on that floor. Long enough that the kitchen went from the yellow of the overhead light to something quieter. Long enough that Duke, who hadn't said a word since he'd stepped back, got up at some point and went out to the garage without being asked.
I heard the garage door. I didn't move.
He came back with the spade from the wall hook where my grandmother kept it for forty years.
He looked at me once. I nodded toward the yard.
