The Kindest Lie: A Delivery Driver, an Old Woman, and Rusty’s Last Winter

is a hammer, and what someone needs is a blanket.

Rusty’s head is on my foot right now while I write this.

He’s heavier than he used to be.

His breaths are slower.

Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and whines like he’s calling for her, and I sit on the floor beside him and whisper, “I know. I know.”

And I think about how the world loves to continue reading …