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“Kyle?”
“You didn’t answer your phone, so I called him.” The defensive way Mrs.Abrams spoke left no doubt that she knew Kyle and I were going through a rough patch.
“I forgot it at home,” I mumbled. “How long ago?”
“Just after two.” Her tone softened. “I took him for a walk. He was fine. Panting a little more than usual, but fine. I was standing in the driveway, talking to the mailman, and he threw up. He’s so small.” She shook her head as if trying to vanquish the memory. “I didn’t know what to do.”
I placed my hand on her shoulder. “You did the right thing calling Kyle.”
Mr.Abrams stepped outside. Patches of Oliver’s red hair clung to his black track pants. “I warned you leaving that dog here wasn’t a good idea,” he said.
“Joel,” Mrs.Abrams said, the one word a warning.
“I would have never thought a little dog like that could make such a big mess,” he continued.
“Have some compassion, Joel.” Mrs.Abrams’s eyes clouded with tears. “Such a sweet thing. I hope he’s all right.”
“I need to get my phone. See if Kyle left any messages.” I took off down the stairs.
“Let me know as soon as you hear anything,” Mrs.Abrams called out after me.
Please, let him be okay.I chanted it to myself as I moved my car across the street and ran into my house. In my bedroom, my phone sat on the charger on the nightstand, where I had placed it last night. The indication light blinked green, signaling I had missed calls, seven of them—five from Mrs.Abrams, starting at a few minutes past one, and two from Kyle, the last one fifteen minutes ago. There were no voice mails.
I scrolled to Kyle’s name and hit the call button. He answered with a gruff hello. “Is Oliver okay?”
He didn’t speak for several seconds. “I’m around the corner. I’ll be right there.” A feeling of foreboding seized me. Why couldn’t he tell me what happened over the phone? Why did he sayI’m around the corner, notwe’re around the corner? The sound of his truck crunching over snow in the driveway pulled me from my thoughts. I sprinted through thehallway and down the staircase toward the front door but slipped on the last step and fell on my butt.
Kyle found me in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and rushed to my side. My heart pounded. Oliver wasn’t with him.
“Are you okay?” He reached for my hand to help me to my feet.
“Where’s Oliver?”
“He’s at the vet. Hooked up to an IV. He’s in rough shape, dehydrated.”
“Dehydrated?” I glanced toward the kitchen, where Oliver’s silver water bowl, half-full, rested on a black mat. “I don’t understand. I always make sure he has water.”
“Dr.Drago thinks he ingested ice melt or something like it.”
An image of Mr.Abrams dumping shovelfuls of the small blue pellets on his walkway popped into my head. Tears spilled from my eyes. When I went to wipe them away, I realized I was still holding Kyle’s hand. I let go, and Kyle took a small step backward.
“He needs to get fluids in him. He’ll be fine.”
“I won’t forgive myself if something happens to him. I should have taken him to the office with me.”
“You can’t think that way, Nikki. Some things are out of our control.”
He had said similar things after the first two rounds of in vitro had failed. Like then, his words didn’t make me feel better. If anything, they made me feel worse because they highlighted the fact that we had so little control over our lives and there was nothing we could do to prevent bad things from happening. We were all doomed.
Kyle walked to his recliner and picked at the dog hair stuck to it. “How long have you had him?”
“Since a little after you left.”
“Where did you get him? You told me you didn’t want another dog.” It might have been my imagination, but he sounded hurt that I had made this decision and picked out a puppy without him.
“He’s Dana’s dog. Only she can’t have pets in her condo, so she asked me to take care of him.”
“Typical Dana.”
