I hadn’t known exactly what I wanted when I’d called a day earlier from my hotel room in Sydney. It had been a struggle to get the information out of the RSPCA, without police credentials, on exactly where the dog had gone after she was dumped at the gates by Kevin on that day. I’d held the receiver, winced at the silence on the other end of the line, wondering if the administrator was about to tell me the dog had been humanely euthanized.

The white dog had been on my mind for a while. In the week since it had all come to an end, as I sat alone in my room drinking Wild Turkey and watching the traffic on the street below, she had returned again and again to my mind. I’d been almost too afraid to make the call.

Leaving Sydney, driving northwest along the inland highway, I still hadn’t known what I wanted. But now I knew. Standing with Al the border collie breeder on his battered, sun-dried porch, looking down at the white dog, I knew.

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.