I set the phone face down on the counter, got off the stool, and went into the back.
Steve was on the filing cabinet. He watched me come in. I went around the cabinet, put my back against the wall, and slid down to sit on the floor beside it.
"Steve."
He blinked.
"You and I are going to have a day."
He leaned his head over the edge of the cabinet against my shoulder.
I sat with him for a minute. Then I got up, washed my face at the sink, walked back out to the front, and refilled my coffee.
The bell went off at four-thirty.
Five of them came through the door, counting the dog. Two parents. A girl, maybe ten, and a boy, maybe eight, both in jackets too thin for the weather. The boy had the leash. The dog was a black lab going gray at the muzzle, and he came through the door pulling toward me before the boy was through.
"Cooper," the boy said. "Cooper, sit. Cooper."
Cooper did not sit.
The mother smiled at me, and the face came back. Bishop. She'd come to the house after my grandfather died when I was eleven. I didn't remember her first name, the way a child doesn't always know the first names of the grown women in her mother's life.
"Mrs. Bishop."
"Astrid. Look at you."
She held her hand out across the counter. I took it.
"We heard you were back. I would have called for an appointment, but we were coming back from town, and I figured I'd come by and see if you were open."
"I'm open."
"Good."
The husband looked around the waiting room with the slow approving nod of a man who knew when a building was put together right.
"It's nice in here."
"Thank you."
The mother kept her hand on the counter. "We heard about the boy at the lake."
"Oh."
Her fingers spread flat on the counter, the way a woman places a hand to make sure you can see her. "My sister-in-law works at the reception at the hospital. She said the firefighters told the doctor a civilian did the work. She said the civilian was a vet from out by Maple Avenue."
I didn't know what to do with my face.
"That was something, Astrid. That was a big thing."
"I just happened to be there."
"That isn't a small thing to just happen to be there."
The husband cleared his throat.
"Cooper's about due. He's eight. We haven't had him in for a year and a half. Caldwell was supposed to do his shots last spring, and we kept meaning to call and reschedule, but we kept not calling. We figured we'd start fresh."
