18
“Lucinda.” Something hard and gentle shakes me. “Lucinda, it’s me.”
My eyes barely have the strength to open, and I wave the hands off me, pressing my face into my pillow. “No, thank you.”
A chuckle, and then, “Having some good dreams?”
The previous night catches up to me in one swift moment.
My eyes blink open, and Anders towers above me on the edge of the bed, his aftershave enveloping me.
“Are you okay?” I get on my knees, pressing my hand to his neck, his head a little too out of reach at this angle. His skin is warm, but not at all hot.
He presses my hand in between both of his. “I’m a lot better, I promise.” He smiles. “I think there’s some residual fever in my feet, but that’s about it.”
My cheeks grow hot at the memory of massaging Vicks onto his heels.
“I have to go,” he says while I try to think of what to say. “I would have let you sleep in more, but I didn’t want you to wake up and me be gone.”
“What time is it?” I ask. “Where are you going?”
“A little after seven,” he answers. “Aunt Bethany is helping her farm owners with a horse that got out in the middle of the night. I’m going to bring Olive to her volleyball league for her.”
“What a cool kid,” I say, a yawn escaping me.
“I’ll be a couple hours,” he explains. “Go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” I say, shutting my eyes as if even speaking with him is exhausting. He lays me down, tucks me under the covers, and I wait until I hear the door click shut.
I open one eye, listen for the sound of the front door doing the same, and then I sit up, fully awake, and shove my face into the pillow and scream.
I slept with Anders.
Not sexually, not with his fever, but in the same bed, pressed against each other, cuddling without moving an inch away. Sleeping together without having sex somehow feels way more intimate.
I sit up. “No, no, it’s not a big deal,” I say aloud, like an insane person. “I just wanted to be close in case he needed me, and he wanted the same, in case he got sicker. Just being considerate.”
That would be more believable if the whole dry humping on the pool table hadn’t happened, but you know what, that’s already in the past. Basically, a faded memory. Forgotten as vegetables at the back of the fridge you swore you’d incorporate into your meals.
These are all problems for future me. I’m not going to sit here and replay the events in my head until I’m crazy. Anders isn’t even here to discuss them with, if I knew exactly how to discuss them at all.
I shoot up and get ready for the day, shower, change, lather myself in lotions.
The first part of the morning I spend scrubbing down Anders’s house. I remove his sheets and stuff them in the washer, like it’ll erase the memory of my body on them beside his. I organize his shelves, dusting where I can, wiping down glass, sweeping and mopping as if I’m getting paid extra for it.
By that afternoon, the skin around my nails is almost entirely missing. Anders is still out—swindled by Olive for an impromptu shopping spree—and my brain is hunting for something to do.
The bridesmaid fitting isn’t till tomorrow, and I’m not getting any hits on the dating app, so I count it as a dead lead. With Anders busy, there’s nothing I need to do at the moment, but every time I sit still, I think of his hands rubbing circles on my back.
I think of him sick with a fever, dealing with his own pain, and still spending his time trying to comfort me, and cannot for the life of me smother the way it makes my heart pound.
I shoot up and go to my room, snatching the business card from Dainese.
Instead of sitting around thinking about Anders, wondering how he feels, if we’re just getting lost in the act or if we care about each other, I decide to busy myself with something I love.
Something that makes sense when everything else doesn’t.
Without a car, it takes me an hour to walk to the tiny shelter, just at the end of the beach. The humidity has stuck to my skin like a second layer, but when I enter K9 Friends, the air conditioner soothes the gathering of sweat on my skin.
It’s a modest place, tighter than Save a Paw, and the cages holding the animals don’t give them much room to do anything other than stretch their legs.
But they’re all painted in blues and yellows—colors dogs can see—and filled with cozy bright blankets and toys, and with thick tablets in each one playing videos of birds chirping through trees. Dog TV.
There’s nobody at the tiny computer desk in the far corner, but I spot a head of pin-straight hair by an open cage.
Dainese is inside, carefully brushing the hair of a tiny Yorkie, humming as she does. She’s smiling, too, and she looks like she loves this dog as much as she loved Sora. A true dog lover, that’s what she thought of me, and I see the same in her, hunched over, soothing after each brush.
It reminds me of the first time I held a stray—after Storm—in my arms and felt, for just a moment, like I was doing something right.
Like I mattered. Because if a terrified animal could look at me like I was safety, like I could be trusted, then even at times when I didn’t feel useful to anyone, it meant that someone—even a dog—needed me.
I remain silent until she finishes. She shuts the gate, then yelps when she spots me standing there.
There’s a domino effect from the noise, and a majority of the dogs howl and bark to mirror her worry.
“It’s you.” Dainese’s eyes go wide. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
“Lucy.” I hold out a hand. “And should I be offended?”
She shakes it firmly, twice, then lets go. “No, sorry, it’s just. So many people say they will, but life gets in the way a lot.”
“Good thing for you I don’t have a life.”
She laughs, and I can see her shoulders relax. “Wow, come, let’s talk outside until they settle.”
I follow her out, back under the humid, cloudy sky. “I’m Dainese,” she tells me in case I forgot, leading me to a small bench by the front door overlooking the stretch of beach. “My mom, Bibi, owns this place, but she’s always busy helping my sister with her triplets, so it’s usually just me.”
My eyes widen. “God bless your sister.”
“She certainly needs him to.” She whistles.
“How many dogs do you take in?”
“We can fit ten but only have the funds to care for five. There’s another shelter, Fur-Friends Sanctuary, on the opposite side of town, that we work with when we can, sending them dogs we can’t board. They’re lovely over there.”
“And it’s just you caring for the five?”
“Well, it used to be my mom, my sister, and me, but you know—”
“Triplets,” I supply for her.
“Yeah, newborns too. We usually get college students volunteering for the summer, but this year has been a little sparse. Still, it’s not too bad. Five is manageable.”
“How long have you worked here?” I ask, and I appreciate that there’s no awkwardness between us, no need for small talk. We immediately speak like we’re already friends just having a catch-up.
“Since I was a kid,” she explains. “My dad started this place, and I was always his little shadow. He passed a couple years ago, so my mom has taken over, but she’s not really a hands-on person.” She then asks, “You said you work at a shelter?”
“Yeah, back in New York. Boards about twenty dogs, which is great when you think about saving that many from the streets, but hard to give them all enough attention. Started volunteering when I was a teen.”
“What made you want to?”
“Long story short, the most precious dog I rescued from the street, and I couldn’t move on since.” Short story long, working with dogs gave me something no job or relationship ever did—purpose.
“Ah, there’s always the first.” She gives me a gentle tap.
“Well, I won’t beat around the bush. If you’re willing to help, I have two dogs to wash, and three of them are going to need some moral support when the vet techs get here to give them their vaccines.
Though, today is a good day—one of them, Shelly, is getting adopted.
But that’ll take up some of my time. I don’t mean to ask for help the first time you visit—”
“I’m in.” I stand. “Use me as much as you can.”
She joins me. “I don’t have any money to offer, but my mom is coming in the afternoon to feed me donuts and matcha, and you’re welcome to have your fill.”
“Deal.”
The only difference between here and Save a Paw is the space and equipment.
Everything here is thoroughly used, from brushes to collars, and there’s not a popular name brand in sight—at least, for the washes and grooming care—but the food is from the most reputable vet-tested brand.
The team here tightens the wallet for smaller things, but food, the most important, doesn’t seem to have a limit.
It’s another thing I love most about this work—not just the dogs, but the people who care about them. The ones who make something out of almost nothing. Who don’t get applause for it but keep showing up anyway.
Save a Paw is my dream; I built it with hopeful hands.
A place where I could finally prove—to the world, and to myself—that I’m not a failure.
That I have purpose. That I belong. That I can be a part of something that doesn’t fall apart when life does.
While we work, Dainese talks to fill up the space.
As someone who was raised with the most talkative human alive (Taina), I’m no stranger to a constant stream of chitchat.
I don’t have to nod or grunt or display signs of listening (I am) because Dainese just assumes I’m keeping up.
Even when we move on from my laborious tasks—like trying to wash a hyperactive husky in a closet of a shower—Dainese barely changes tone.
She tells me Sora’s story, of the loving home he had with an elderly couple who passed within weeks of each other, and how the displacement brought him here, and more.
She checks her athletic wristwatch and says, “The couple adopting should be here soon, perfect timing.” She grabs a towel from beneath her desk drawer and tosses it to me. “Then we can eat.”