Corey used to ask me why I did this. It's too fucking sad. Why would you spend your free time with dogs you know are going to die? I couldn't explain it to her then, and I can't explain it to myself even now. Just that being here, as sad as it is, is comforting to me in a way most other things aren't.

Besides, everything dies.

I sit with Bella for two hours, stroking her head when she leans it against the fence with a heavy sigh. When I leave, I tell her I'm sorry and that I'll miss her. I never forget their names.

#

For the next three days, I do a lot of wandering around the house and not sleeping, blasting Beatles CDs at volumes that would have given Maggie a heart attack. (Ha.) I want to cry. Crying would be a normal reaction to this, to losing someone who was more family to me than anyone else ever has been. Being a wreck would be better than this: feeling nothing and everything all at once and physically unable to react to any of it.

Penny finally makes an appearance on the third day, but only long enough to tell me how upset she is to have lost such a good friend, and to ask when the funeral is. I stare at her blankly.

She frowns. "You are planning the funeral, aren't you?"

"Of course," I say, although I'm not. What would I know about planning funerals?

When the phone rings later, I throw myself at it and answer breathlessly, hoping for Corey. The person on the other end is most notably more male than Corey.

"Vincent? Is that you? It's Harold."

I pause, running the name through the tattered rolodex that is my brain. "Oh."

"Maggie's attorney."

"Uh huh," I say, because he's stupid if he thinks I don't know that. He's worked for Maggie for years, long before I came along. Even if I've only met him a handful of times in passing, I've heard her on the phone with him and they've gone out to lunch multiple times.

"I'm so, so sorry for your loss, kiddo. I know it's a rough time right now, but can I swing by tonight and go over some paperwork with you?"

What in the world does Maggie's lawyer want with me? But I say yeah, sure, and hang up, and later I wonder if he's coming to tell me something about the house. Obviously without Maggie here, no one is paying the mortgage or utilities, and I don't have a way to do it. Do I have to leave? Where do I go? I just finished high school, for crying out loud; I don't even have a job. I wouldn't know the first thing about getting one.

By the time Harold shows up in his crisp suit and slicked-back, graying hair, I've worked myself up into a stage of debilitating panic, and there's no time to take my medication to mellow myself out. Where's a paper bag when I need one?