It took a while for Jon Snow and Gemma to settle down on the plane. They had flown private a few times before to Maine, Hawaii, and once from Newfoundland, Canada, which was where they were born. Anna had it in her head after Doozy, her first Newfoundland, died that she couldn’t possibly get another Newfie after she’d already had the perfect one, but a few sleepless nights after Doozy’s death, she was sitting in the dark of the living room in the CPW apartment when her father came home late from work. He didn’t even see her curled up on the couch, but she watched him come into the dark living room and make himself a drink. She was afraid she would scare him, so she stayed very still. But she had been crying and sniffled, and her dad heard.

“Anna?” he asked. “Is that you?”

She nodded in the dark, even though he couldn’t see her. Her father came over and sat next to her. She put her head in his lap like she was still a little girl and cried, telling her dad that it didn’t make sense. Doozy had just celebrated her ninth birthday. (Anna always had a birthday party for Doozy every year, complete with a buttercream frosted cake.) When she came home from the dog park two months later, she’d had a slight limp and then seven days later she was gone, just like that. Her father reminded Anna she was only thirteen years old, so she’d have many more dogs in her lifetime, and that death was as much a part of life as learning to love again was. Love cannot last forever or it wouldn’t be special.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, Daddy,” she had said. “No offense.”

She told her dad then that she had decided Doozy would be her last Newfoundland and she was already trying to decide what breed her next dog would be.

“Or because you loved Doozy so much,” he said, “you get another one, or even two. Don’t think about it like you’re replacing Dooz, think about it like you are honoring all that was good about her. Loving her, slobber and all, will only make you love your next Newfie even more.”