Page 2

“Dylan! What happened? Are you okay?” The man put his arms around the boy but wrenched away when the child flinched violently, another screech tearing from his throat.
“Are you his father?”
The man nodded. “Yeah, I’m Scott. This is my son, Dylan.”
“My name’s Abby, and I’m an EMT.” She grimaced and corrected herself. “Iwasan EMT and I’m trained in First Aid. Can I help your son?”
Gen creeped forward on her belly until she could cuddle up against the boy’s uninjured side. He twined his fingers in her fur and leaned against her, panting in pain. The dog laid her head on his knee and nuzzled his injured arm.
The man, Scott, nodded once without looking at her, his eyes glued to his son.
Abby sidled in closer to the boy. “Hi, Dylan. I’d like to take a peek at your arm. You took quite a spill.”
She talked to him as she checked him over, her voice low and soothing, pausing only to monitor the cadence of his hiccupping breaths, high-pitched and wheezy, as if he wanted to scream again but the pain had stolen his voice.
He leaned deeper into the dog as Abby ran her fingers along his injury, and Gen responded by pressing closer and licking his uninjured knee.
“Is she safe?” The father’s voice broke through Abby’s methodical exam.
“She’s a therapy dog,” Abby replied, attention on his son. “It’s her job.”
Abby pulled the light jacket from around her waist and improvised a sling for the boy’s arm. “You need to take him straight to the hospital. I’m pretty sure he has a fracture, and he looks like he’s going into shock. Do you have a car here?”
“Yeah, right over there.” He waved toward the nearest parking lot, hidden in a copse of drooping palmettos, and dug in his pocket for his keys.
Abby clicked her tongue at the dog. “Okay, Gen, come here.”
The dog wriggled free of the boy and waited while the adults helped Dylan to stand. When he wobbled and reached out, Gen slid under his hand, taking his weight while he caught his balance. Abby ushered them toward the parking lot. A sleek silver sports car blipped and flashed its headlights as the group approached. Gen escorted Dylan to the back door and waited while he crawled in and buckled his seatbelt, then put her paws up on the white leather seat and licked his cheek. Abby pulled at the dog’s collar, her cheeks heating.
“Gen, off. That’s enough.” She turned to Dylan’s father. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for all your help.”
She waited until they had pulled out of the space and turned onto the main road, fine dust billowing up from beneath his tires and settling thick and gritty on her skin before turning to her dog. “Gen, what were you thinking? You know better.”
The dog cocked her head and dropped her jaw in a wide smile.
Falling to one knee, Abby winced as the upbraided skin pulled, but she fondled Gen’s ears, then scratched under her chin. “It doesn’t matter. You already know you did a good job.”
Standing, she clicked her tongue. “Come on, let’s go home.”
The pair meandered along the paths, Gen’s nose to the ground as she investigated every tree trunk and hollow. Not quite a cooldown—even in March, Charleston was too humid to ever truly be “cool” —by the time they left the park Abby’s breaths had evened, the surge of adrenaline dissipating.
They passed the heavy granite pillars and under the arching wrought-iron gates of the entrance, then turned onto the sidewalk. White row houses with black shutters and open verandas marched in perfect formation down the street. An occasional pop of pastel color painted a facade, but this was no Rainbow Row, and the neighborhood generally lent itself to a more traditional feel: quiet, clean, demure. Manicured lawns and perfectly clipped box hedges.
Like Abby, they hid their messes safely behind locked doors, out of sight.
A child’s happy cry, so different from the one that had demanded their attention, echoed through the iron pickets, the playground invisible behind the myrtles and hanging Spanish moss. Gen danced at the end of her leash, tail swishing as she turned toward the sound, then back to Abby.
“Are you telling me it’s time?”
The dog whuffled, and though Abby couldn’t quite smile, she nodded.
“Okay. I hear you.”
Two
“WHAT’S WITH HER?” The young nurse reached down to scratch Gen behind the ears, but the dog wriggled away and nibbled her fingers, then came back, pressing her head against the nurse’s leg. “Playing coy today, are we?”