Page 2

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?”

“Hey, Cara.” Abby glanced up from her paperwork. “We had a bit of an incident this weekend. I think she’s ready to get back to work.”

“Ooh, I heard about that from Tia in ER.” Cara plopped down in the gimbaled chair behind the counter, then bounced up again as one of the admin staff shot her a dark glare.

Abby rolled her eyes. “How did Tia hear about it?”

“She was working Saturday afternoon. Said a dad came in with his son and wouldn’t stop talking about the woman in the park, a former EMT, who’d helped them. Of course, as soon as he mentioned Gen, they all knew it had to be you. According to Tia, he kept calling you an angel.”

Abby wrinkled her nose, scrawled her signature at the bottom of a sheet, and passed it across the counter to the administrative assistant. “We’re going to see the Harper twins.”

He took the page and raised an eyebrow. “Good luck.”

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open.

“We were running in the park, and his kid fell off the monkey bars. I think he had a fracture, maybe multiple fractures, and already going into shock. Gen went right to work; I think she’s missed it.”

“Well, it’s been a couple weeks since you’ve been here.” Cara squeezed Abby’s arm. “We’ve missed you.”

A familiar weight dragged Abby’s shoulders down, the urge to curl protectively into herself almost too great to bear, but she forced her chin up and straightened her back. “Yeah, sorry. It’s hard, you know, this time of year.”

Cara nodded as the elevator chimed again at the fourth floor.

Abby reached down and straightened Gen’s working jacket, a heavy, red canvas harness that clipped across her chest and under her ribs with “Therapy Dog” stitched in brilliant white block letters on both sides.

A plastic sleeve between her shoulders held a hospital badge, complete with a picture.

The doors slid open, and Abby pasted a bright smile on her face.

Painted in a sunny shade of yellow with zoo animals marching up and down the long hallways, the juxtaposition of such cheerful décor in the center of a hospital always tugged at Abby’s heart, even more so knowing the misery hidden behind each of the doors.

But it served its own purpose, as she and Gen did, a healing counterpoint to the pain of this place.

Abby paused at the nurse’s station, a small rectangle of desks and computers situated in the intersection of several halls. “Hi, Linda. We’re on our way to the Harper boys.”

“Bless you, Abby. Liam took a turn for the worse last week and Ethan is heartbroken. They’ve been moved to room seven.” The on-duty nurse checked her clipboard. “The Ross girl could also use a visit, and we have a couple new patients in four and nine but steer clear of six.”

Abby smiled. “Yeah, I remember. Christopher’s parents get nervous about having a dog around his ventilator.”

She waved goodbye to Cara, then guided Gen down the hall toward the Harper twins’ new room.

The boys had been a rambunctious pair before Liam developed a rare form of childhood leukemia and began treatments.

Now, too weak to perpetuate any mischief, Ethan stayed by his side, a shadow of his former self as his brother wasted away.

Identical twins with a rare blood type, Ethan often donated the blood for the transfusions needed to keep Liam alive.

Both boys had slipped into deep depression early on in Liam’s treatments; then, Abby and Gen entered their lives.

The difference had been immediate and extraordinary.

Abby knocked twice on the open door, then entered. “Hi, guys! What’s going on?”

The boys’ mother raised an anxious face to Abby from her seat beside Liam’s bed, her eyes reflecting the familiar emptiness and heartbreak of so many parents on this floor.

Ethan nudged his brother’s shoulder. “Look, Liam, Gen and Abby are here.”

Liam did, indeed, seem worse than the last time Abby had visited.

His skin had a grayish tint to it and seemed translucent; his eyes were sunken and had none of their childhood spark.

But he raised his head as Gen entered and his lips twitched in a smile of welcome before he flopped back in exhaustion.

“Ok, Gen, you know the drill. Hop up.” Abby kept a light hand on Gen’s leash and used the other on her collar to guide her landing on the sick child’s bed.

Gen went to her belly and wiggled in as close to Liam as she could manage. The boy wrapped both arms around her and buried his face in her fur.

Ethan came around the bed and wound his fingers into her ruff. Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Gen squirmed around to lick Ethan’s face, dropping her jaw to smile.

Liam huffed a low laugh at Ethan’s grimace and Ethan, responding to his brother’s shift in attitude, giggled, too, then pressed his cheek against Gen’s nose, encouraging her to lick him again.

This time, he drew back in a parody of disgust, complete with long, drawn-out side-effects of “Ewwwww,” and “Gross, Gen. That’s disgusting!

” He clowned for his brother and both boys smiled, one wanly and one with his heart on his sleeve.

After their round of the pediatric floor, Abby checked in again before leaving.

“Hey Linda, I’ll be back Wednesday.”

The on-duty nurse nodded. “We haven’t seen you here in a while. The children are always glad.”

Abby’s shoulders tightened as the guilt and shame welled up within her. If only she were stronger, maybe this would be easier. She turned toward the elevator and punched the down button more aggressively than she intended. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been...”

“No need, darling. We all miss him.” Linda’s low voice flooded with sympathy. “But he’d be glad you still come. For the kids.”

Tears, never far from the surface, stung Abby’s eyes and her breath picked up speed.

“Yeah.”

Too slow to offer the refuge Abby would need in a moment, she abandoned the elevator and wobbled toward the heavy steel door to the stairs.

As she passed, she ran fingers over the plastic sign, the rough right angles of the pictograph and the raised bumps of the braille beneath catching at her skin.

Her hands were slick and clammy, and she lurched forward, Gen beside her, into the relative safety of the vaulting concrete stairwell.

Collapsing to her knees, she wrapped both arms around the dog, fingers clutching at long tufts of fur.

She buried her nose in Gen’s ruff, and the familiar scent of the dog’s shampoo filled her nose.

Gen’s steady panting in her ear, faster than her own breath, but soothing nonetheless, anchored Abby.

One breath in for Gen’s every four. And out again.

Breathing in time with Gen, Abby let the emotions wash over her.

Grief, fear, anger... It had been six months before she could step into the hospital, a year before she could visit the pediatric floor.

This had been his place. Only with the bulwark of Gen’s presence had she ever found the courage to come back, but the need to fulfill his dream, to help heal children, won out stronger than her pain.

At least one of them was still doing what needed to be done.

Abby dragged her sleeve across her eyes.

Gen shook, her fur settling back along her body where Abby’s clutching fingers had rooted in it. Catching a lock of Abby’s hair in her mouth, Gen tugged, then dropped it.

Abby ruffled the dog’s ears and whispered, “Naughty girl,” before standing again.

The familiar scrabble and click of Gen’s toenails on the steep, concrete stairs grounded Abby as they descended, the cool wash of air-conditioned breeze drying the sticky sweat slicking her skin.

Ducking into the small café near the front entrance, Abby prepared some tea, wrapping her fingers around the heavy paper cup and letting the heat seep into her chilled and aching joints as she sank into a hard plastic chair.

“Are you okay, hon?”

Abby ripped her gaze from its blank focus on the curling steam to find a stranger at the next table watching her.

“Sure. I’m fine.” The rote words were flat, a litany she’d repeated too many times to stumble over, even now, on the heels of nearly losing herself in the stairwell.

She was just... broken. And if three years hadn’t been enough time to put her back together, maybe a lifetime wouldn’t be enough, either.