I wait in the car while she puts money in the meter. We’re back near the hospital, so I assume she’s taking me to a head doctor. That’s what they’ll do now, right?

She opens the door and motions me out. I follow her through a gate. It’s not the hospital. I look up to see the word vet over the door. I stop.

Lucy keeps walking for a few steps.

“I can’t.”

She stops. “What?”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t see him.”

She comes back and takes my hand. “It’s okay, Rae.”

I pull away. Remembering the weight of him. Remembering all the blood. “No, it’s not. I can’t see him like that.”

“Like what?”

“All broken and lifeless.” My voice cracks.

She smiles at me. “It’s okay, Rae. There’s someone waiting to see you.”

I see the pet adoption sign in the window. Is she really this clueless? “No. I don’t want a new dog.”

Lucy frowns. “What? I’m not—”

“I don’t want a new dog. I can’t.”

I watch her face change. “Oh god. Nobody told you.” She looks horrified. She kneels on the asphalt in front of me. Takes my hands. “Rae, he’s okay. He’s a bit beaten up, and he lost his leg. But he’s okay.”

“What?” I barely get it out.

She smiles at me, still holding my hands, her stockings getting grubby. “He’s inside, Rae. He’s going to be okay.”

Lucy has to run to keep up with me.

He’s a mess when they show me in. Three legs; patches of fur missing with drips going in everywhere and stitches in his lip. He’s wearing a cone of shame, and I stick my head in it and kiss him. I squeeze him too hard and he yelps and he’s licking my face so much I don’t know what’s slobber and what’s tears.

HE CAN’T COME home straightaway. Lucy tells me he can come back to her place when he’s ready, which seems to make Oscar happy.

Turns out Lucy’s pretty good at finding things. It’s Lucy who tracks down my grandma.

I have a grandma. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Three hours after I find out she exists, I speak to her on the phone. Or rather we breathe into the same phone line. What do you say to someone you’ve never met? I ask her that, in one of the silences.

Her reply surprises me. “Oh, I’ve met you, Rae. I was there the day you were born.”

That’s weird. Someone who’s known me since my first breath, whose face I don’t even know.

I listen to her breathing some more. Then: “Do you want to come and live with me?”