When a Scruffy Little Dog Refused to Let an Old Woman Disappear

of me, the one who had watched Clara cry into Barnaby’s fur after holidays that came and went without a visitor, wanted to say, She was lonely. She was so, so lonely.

Both would be true. Both would be incomplete.

I took a breath.

“I think,” I began slowly, “that your mom loved you fiercely. She kept your drawings from when you were five in her wallet.continue reading …