Chapter 32: The Heart I Kept

I stood up with the glass in one hand and the brass nameplate in the other.

The table went quiet, except for a fork somebody dropped.

"I didn't plan anything," I said. "I want that on the record."

"Noted," said the vet.

"Two months ago I stood at a payment desk and my card was declined."

Nobody laughed.

"I thought I knew who was holding up my life. I thought it was my boyfriend and my best friend."

I let that sit.

"I thought they were my people."

Across the table, the Ohio woman set down her roll.

"I stopped believing in people."

"The only one I kept was Biscuit."

Biscuit raised his head at his name from under Lorcan's chair.

"And I spent a lot of nights lying awake, sure that I was going to die the way my mother did, with nobody in the room who'd tell the truth about it."

I looked down the long table.

"That's not what happened."

Toby had both hands over his face.

"My practice manager gave me back pay I never asked for."

She dabbed her eye with a napkin.

"You all washed dogs on a Wednesday so I wouldn't have to take a jar."

The techs began to laugh.

"And a man came to my clinic with a greyhound for no reason at all, and ate lunch with me."

Lorcan looked at his plate.

"A woman drove eleven hours from Ohio."

"A woman came from Tampa with a binder."

"A bartender told on himself over a microphone, which is the bravest thing I've ever watched a man do."

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