Page 118 of Happiness for Beginners

I did not want to be a bitchy big sister anymore. But my arms just kind of crossed themselves.

“Listen,” Duncan said. “About the cooler—”

“Yes. I want to thank—”

He stepped over next to it. “It’s kind of a good-news-bad-news situation. Except…”

I looked down at it. “Except?”

“Except there is no good news.”

“Oh.”

“I meant to tell you right away. But then you hit me with the Mom thing.”

“Just say it. Waiting never makes anything better.”

“Right,” he said. But then he didn’t say it. He took a breath, but no words came out.

I checked my watch. “I’ve actually got somewhere to be, so—”

“It’s about Pickle!” he burst out then.

My eyes went wide. “My dog Pickle?”

He took a deep breath, looked up, and said, “She’s dead! She died.”

All I could do was stare.

“She got very sick,” he went on, like he’d rehearsed his speech. “And then she died.”

My brain spun. How does a dog die at the vet?

“She had a thing called ‘torsion,’” he went on. “Actually, the technical term is GDV, ‘gastric dilation volvulus.’ Their stomachs flip over, and fill up with gas, and they basically implode. It’s common in big dogs with deep chests.”

I was shaking my head. “But she’s a small dog with a narrow chest!”

Duncan nodded. “It’s also common in dachshunds.”

I couldn’t fit the pieces together. “Couldn’t they do anything for her?”

Duncan shook his head. “It’s lethal if you don’t catch it within an hour.”

My voice was rising. “But why didn’t they catch it?”

I registered Duncan’s expression. He wasn’t kidding. Gone was the Coke-belching brother who’d just walked in. Now his expression was contorted with worry. “This is the part where you hate me.” At the words, tears spilled over and down his cheeks. “She wasn’t at the vet.”

“Shewasat the vet,” I insisted. “I checked her in.”

“Yes.” Duncan nodded, his voice quiet. “But then I checked her out.”

My eyes went wide. “You checked her out?”

“I didn’t want her to spend a month in a cage! I wanted to bring her home and teach her tricks and take good care of her like you’d asked me to. I was going to surprise you! I was going to come through for once. And we had a great time! I got her a jangly tag for her collar with her name in rhinestones! She ate myCatcher in the Rye! And I taught her a trick! I taught her how to shake!”

“She already knew how to shake,” I said.

That threw him off. “We were pals, I’m telling you! She was happy with me. But then one day, I came home and found her panting.”

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