I gaze at the mountains standing so straight and white and solid far away. “Have you ever been up in those mountains?” I ask her, changing to a less sad subject.

She looks up and follows my gaze. “No,” she says. “My dad always said one day we’d go up there, but we never did.”

“That’s too bad,” I say.

Gabby shrugs. “I don’t really care. They’re no big deal.”

I can’t believe she thinks those mountains are no big deal. “Well, I’m going up there one day,” I say. “Just you watch.”

This makes Gabby smile.

Dylan jumps off his swing and runs over. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he says, hopping from one foot to the other. “Bad.”

I sigh. Gabby points to a gray concrete building. “They’re over there.”

I take Dylan’s hand. “Let’s go.”

We trot over to the bathroom and there, tucked way back in a corner by a garbage can, is a little dog curled up on top of a duffel bag.

“It’s Toto!” Dylan whispers with excitement.

The dog lays his ears back and wags his stumpy tail. His brown eyes lock onto mine. I know him.

My heart breaks into a big smile. “It’s Baby!” At the sound of his name, Baby wiggles all over.

“That’s that woman’s dog, the one we’ve seen at the place where we eat, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Dylan says. “That man wouldn’t let her in because she had a dog.” He frowns. “It wasn’t fair, was it, Piper?”

Before I can answer, Dylan jumps like a piece of popcorn. “I have to pee!” he says, and races into the bathroom.

I turn back to Baby. “Hey,” I say, and squat down. “Hey, you.”

Slowly, I hold my hand out for him to sniff like Grandpa Bill taught me to do. “Let him read your skin first before you pet a dog you don’t know,” he always said. “Your smell will tell him everything he needs to know.”

The little dog must have liked what he read on my skin because he licks the tips of my fingers.

I’ve always wanted a dog, but we never lived anywhere that allowed them.

I reach out and touch the white patch on the top of his head. It looks like a snowflake.

I feel something inside me I didn’t know was frozen, melt.

His eyes are just like the color of chocolate. I swear, when he looks into my eyes, I think he knows me too.

“What are you doing?” a gravelly voice asks.

A woman stands behind me, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the big square head of a very large dog. Her hard eyes squint down at me.