I reached into my back pocket and drew out my wallet.

Rumbling along the highway, my window down, air shuddering in and out of the vehicle. The white dog sat upright on the passenger seat, mouth open and tongue foaming, panting as she watched the road ahead, that bad paw slightly raised, all her weight leaning on the good one. I let the phone in the center console play what it wanted through the radio, a wandering streaming channel, hits from the 1980s. The musty, acrid smell of unwashed dog was strangely nice. I crossed over to the coast road just to draw out the journey with her. I think she might have liked to stick her head out the open window beside her, but her balance wasn’t good.

I stopped somewhere near Byron Bay and bought a couple of sausage rolls at a little roadside service station, stood outside the car looking in at her looking out at me while the pastry cooled. When I offered her the roll she didn’t even sniff it. Just took it into her jaws in two gulps. Gone. Impressive.

Near Burleigh Heads I noticed a flea crawling in the hair on my arm, pinched it and put it out the window. The dog lifted a paw, acquiesced as I reached over and examined her belly. She was crawling with them. Flashes of black between the strands of white. I gave her a rub on the head, reached down and lifted the battered tag from the front of her throat.

“Pig,” I read aloud. The dog’s ears swiveled, mouth drawing closed, ready for my command. I gritted my teeth, tugged the tag. It came right off the tattered old collar.

“Sorry, honey,” I told the dog. “‘Pig’ isn’t gonna work for me.”

I chucked the tag out the window. We rode together in silence.

Near Mackay, a song came on the radio. Celine Dion’s “Think Twice.” I jolted at the sound of the dog’s howling, having forgotten she was there. The dog looked at me. Paused. Lifted her head and howled again, a low, sad, lilting sound perfectly in keeping with the song on the radio.

I drove and watched. The dog sang and sang. And when Dion’s song was over, the animal beside me fell quiet, that pink tongue appearing again, jiggling with the vibrations of the car.

“Is it just that song?” I asked the beast, taking the phone from the center console. I typed into the search bar as I drove. Something by Ronan Keating had begun to play. I cut of it off to play Celine Dion’s “The Power of Love.”

I watched the dog. Nothing. And then, just when I’d turned back to the road, she lifted her chin and began to howl. She sang and I grinned.

“‘Celine’ it is, then,” I said. I fell into long overdue laughter.