I agreed to take Pierre for a few days, perhaps because I was more pliant in my half-asleep, 1.5-milligrams-of-Xanax state. I repeated “just a few days” four or five times to be sure. Even though I didn’t have any plans and I lived in walking distance to a dog park, the responsibility of caring for Pierre felt immense.

The woman dropped him off and gave me a roll of dog-waste bags, Pierre’s sleeping pad, and a bag of food. She told me I could use my own bowls, because she had forgotten them.

She looked up and down my street and said, “Pierre will have a lot to sniff here.”

I had a terrible feeling I would never see her again, but she assured me she’d be back soon. She just had to see her children for a few days and could not manage both. I looked at her and wondered how close she’d been to Daphne—if I could trade taking care of Pierre for more information about her.

“He’s been a nice reminder of her. Sometimes I put my face in his fur and cry.”

I looked down at Pierre and held his leash. He sniffed around my stoop and lifted his leg to mark it as she disappeared back in her car and drove off.

I took Pierre to my apartment and let him off his leash. He ran from room to room, sniffing, and I worried he might pee somewhere, or worse. I hovered over him as he checked things out.

“Pierre, relax.”

He ignored me and kept pacing. I looked at my bowls, new on clearance from Crate & Barrel, ones I had never used before because I hadn’t had anyone over yet, and filled them with water and kibble and put them on the floor. He just looked at me, upset.

“Do you need to go out?”

He lay down on his side and opened his legs, his erection blooming. I felt bad for him all of a sudden, his vulnerabilities always on display.

“Relax a little, Pierre.”

He jumped up again and came toward me. I petted his head and said, “Just calm down.”

I couldn’t take him to the dog park like that. The other dogs would harass him.

Instead, I took Pierre on a long walk. He seemed to calm down later in the evening. I put his bed near mine, and he curled into it and went to sleep. Listening to him breathe and groan in his sleep, I thought of Daphne. I wondered if she could see us. Me and Pierre, together again. I watched him snore until I fell asleep, too. I didn’t wake up once in the night.

WHEN I WOKE UP in the morning, I felt as if Daphne had given me a test posthumously and I had passed it. I was a responsible person. I looked down at Pierre and he was still sleeping.