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He nodded at the dog. “You think this dog being home alone sleeping on a chaise for eight hours is worse than what he came from? Have you seen the shelters right now? They don’t even have cages. They’ve got the dogs lined up in the hallway stacked in crates.”

I dragged a hand down my mouth. “I don’t know…”

“Look, take him home. Ask around, post on socials, maybe someone will want him. Nobody’s coming for this dog. You are all he has.”

All he has…

An orphan. I looked down at the tiny thing and went quiet.

Xavier eyed me like he knew what I was thinking.

Maybe he did.

“You been doing okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Fine.”

I felt him study me. “She was a good lady, Chris.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t look at him. “She really was.”

Even if I didn’t know her like I thought I did.

My cell phone pinged and I pulled it out. It was Larissa.

Can I come over and see the dog and drop off your hoodie?

I smiled a little at the phone.

Today was the first time in a long time I felt normal. Or at least the first time that I didn’t think about Mom for a period long enough to count.

The way it ended. How.

My parents had me late in life. Dad was eighty-three when he passed from his heart attack four years ago and Mom was turning seventy-nine this year. I’d kept it vague when I’d told the guys she was dying, but I think Xavier had an idea of what happened. He was a doctor, knew enough to glean the truth of it, even if I didn’t spell it out. I didn’t volunteer it and he didn’t ask me. I was glad. Because I wasn’t ready to say any of it out loud. At least not outside of therapy and the grief support group I went to.

I stared at Larissa’s text asking if she could come see the dog.

That was the woman my best friend was seeing, and Larissa and I weren’t close enough for her to come over like that. Maybe if Mike was coming with her, she could stop by and see the dog. Bring me the hoodie. The same went with the books she wanted me to check out. Maybe if I’d been the one to drop her off today like we’d planned, it wouldn’t be weird to come inside the house for a second and look at the paperbacks she’d offered.

But that’s not what happened.

Me: Come with Mike the next time he comes over.

I turned off the screen and put my phone away.

We got the dog treated and I went home.

The next day I did follow up with Mike. He paid for Larissa’s car like I asked. And a few days later, they were relationship official.

4

LARISSA

I talked to a lawyer,” I said, putting two ibuprofen in Mom’s good hand.

“When?” She threw back the pills and swallowed them with her diet cola.

“Yesterday. It would cost more money to hire her than I would get suing him for it.”