Page 119 of Happiness for Beginners

“Came home from where?”

“From work! I got a job.”

“Doing what?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Ironically, I got a job at the vet.”

“What vet?”

“Pickle’s vet! When I was there signing her out, they had a sign posted for a tech. I applied, and got hired, and I’ve been working there ever since. I’m good at it.”

“You were at Pickle’s vet’s office while she was dying in your apartment?”

Duncan closed his eyes, and more tears spilled over. Then he pushed on, “When I found her, I couldn’t drive her back because my car had a boot on it from a parking spot mishap, and so I got on my bike with her cradled in one arm and rode the twenty-two blocks back to work. We were almost hit by a bus. And the whole time, I was talking to her, and saying, ‘All we have to do is just get you to Doc Sampson. He’ll fix you right up. You’re going to be fine.’ But by the time I got there, it was too late. She died in my arms.”

I was crying now, too.

“She slept with me every night,” he said. “She burrowed under my Budweiser blanket.”

“She loved to burrow,” I said.

After a minute, Duncan whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

“You killed my dog.”

“I tried to save her! I’d have given anything to save her!”

“But she died.”

“She was a great dog,” Duncan said.

“She was a horrible dog,” I corrected.

“Not to me,” he said, barely able to get the words out. “I loved that little rat-faced pooch.”

And in that moment, I knew that he did. I stepped close and grabbed him into a hug. “Me too,” I said. And right then, on that crazy afternoon, for what felt like the first time in our lives, we had something good in common.

***

It wasn’t until later, at the kitchen table, after we’d raided GiGi’s pantry for Oreos, that I thought to ask him what all this had to do with the cooler.

“You haven’t guessed?” he asked. He had a milk mustache.

I shook my head.

“It’s Pickle.”

I almost dropped my glass. “What?!”

He nodded, all earnest. “I brought her to you.”

“Pickle?” I said, still catching up. “Is in the Igloo cooler?”

Duncan nodded.

I rounded the kitchen corner back to the entryway to stare at it.

“How long has she been in there?”

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