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brEATHE, JUST brEATHE...

What had begun as a mind-numbing litany years before had become a mantra.

In, out, in, out ... Some moments were easy, others it was all Abby could do to sense the air inflating her lungs, filling them like a balloon until they pressed against her ribs from within, constricting her heart, holding it together.

Fatigue slowed the young dog running by her side, tongue lolling out, but smiling in that dog way: jaw dropped open, eyes bright, tail wagging. Dogs lived in the moment; no past, no future, only the wind whistling in their ears and the warm pavement beneath their paws.

Sometimes, Abby wished she could live the same way.

She’d adopted the lanky, tufted black pup three years before, weeks after her whole world had collapsed. Her mind shied away. Breathe...

Mostly Lab, a little Border Collie, and probably a smattering of who-knew-what-else, she was all soulful brown eyes and midnight black fur, with a delicate, pointed face and tall, twitching ears that followed every sound.

Perhaps Abby shouldn’t have adopted the pup, the splintered pieces of her own life scattered, but the tag on the dog’s collar said it all: Abigail’s Genesis .

“C’mon Gen, one more lap.”

They passed the playground, the happy cries of children echoing the bright colors splashed across the verdant foliage beyond.

The many-leafed palmettos with their squat, ringed trunks and drooping branches interspersed with madronas, oaks, and the occasional maple.

On the right, the fishing dock extended over the muddy tidal flats, buzzing with the drone of a thousand mosquitos.

Abby wrinkled her nose at the tang of stale saltwater and the rotting scent of fish carcasses from the previous day. Gen lifted her own nose and inhaled deeply.

Farther along, the path looped, and they passed the observation tower children so loved to climb. The flat landscape—barely above sea level—gave them an uninterrupted view all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, along with the wide, lazy tidal flats, rivers, and swampy bayous that lay between.

The trail continued to curve, opening from a mere path to a dusty gravel road.

Onward they ran, the dog zig-zagging her way around the many muddy puddles settling in hollows, turning the fine grit to clay and preventing the water from seeping back into the ground.

Swinging wide to keep her paws dry, she tugged the leash in Abby’s fist, unbalancing her.

“Gen, that’s enough.” Abby’s breath came quick but steady, leaving enough air in her lungs for a gentle scolding when needed. The dog settled back into her stride, only turning her head now and again to sniff at the carpet of dead, brown leaves littering the roadway.

Overhead, the massive shade trees sifted shafts of morning sun through their leaves, dappling the ground, playing tricks of shadow and light.

Abby had seen deer hiding in the underbrush here, even scared a few snakes off the road as they caught the first warmth of the day.

Once, a small alligator had crossed over, sliding into an overflowing drainage ditch.

Not as exciting as the dolphins she’d seen walking Gen on The Battery, but since then, she’d kept Gen on a shorter leash when they ran together.

A low concrete wall ran up from the ground, then curved away, leading Abby and Gen back toward the playground.

A scream reverberated through the trees.

Not an excited, childlike shriek of joy or excitement, but a screech that forced a shot of adrenaline through Abby’s system—a cry of pain she recognized, and a response so ingrained she didn’t notice the way her chest constricted, or her palms grew sweaty.

Gen pulled ahead, dragging on her leash, urging Abby to go faster.

The scream faded away, but the echo of it lodged in Abby’s gut, nerves and tension and the unavoidable dictate to respond .

Abby took the last corner before the playground too sharply, her sneakers skidding out in the loose roadway, and she went to one knee. The gravel tore through her leggings, then the skin beneath. The heel of her hand, too, stung.

Gen was beside her in a moment, encouraging her. With a lick on the cheek, they took off again, the discomfort not forgotten but instead ignored, relegated to a part of Abby’s mind that, though rusty, had long practice holding such feelings.

Pain. Fear. Anger.

Bursting onto the playground, Abby assessed the scene in a single heartbeat: a child sitting on the ground beneath the monkey bars, knees bloody, dirt smeared across his high cheekbone, arm clutched across his chest, eyes wide and glassy with pain.

He had brown hair, light eyes, and the kind of over-long, gawky limbs that suggested a middle school-aged growth spurt.

Deep gouges in the wood chips showed where he had slid after falling.

Two girls watched from the platform above. The older one pointed to the boy.

“He tried to jump to the third bar and missed.”

Abby processed all of this in the few moments it took to slide to a stop beside him.

“My name’s Abby, and I’m here to help.”

The boy’s mouth hung open, head thrown back in a howl, but no sound came out.

More wood chips flew up as another adult skidded to his knees by the boy.

“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. “I was an 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.”