Then a thought hit me that was so awful it made me feel shaky—what if Kat had done this on purpose? Was she that upset about what I’d said to her? I couldn’t block out the way her face had looked when I’d told her she was a lot. She was—but usually it was a good thing, one of the reasons I loved her. I wished I could take it back. I’d hit below the belt—we both had—but had she been upset enough to leave me behind?

Or—and this thought slithered into my mind like an insidious snake—had she done this to solve her problem? Had she left me to take care of the dog, even though she knew I didn’t like them, so that she could go ahead and see Mr. Campbell’s play unencumbered?

No, I decided, shaking my head, even though it probably made me look crazy. Kat wouldn’t have done that. We’d just gotten separated accidentally.…

Brad whined and I looked down at him, my dog panic replacing friend and phone and general situation panic.

What was wrong with him? Why was he making that sound? Was I supposed to do something? What if he needed to go to the bathroom and had an accident on the train? How was I going to clean it up? What if everyone saw me with this dog—that I probably wasn’t even supposed to have on the subway in the first place—and he made a mess and everyone was looking at me and getting mad? I could practically see it playing out in front of me.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO-DO-DO-DO-DO-DO?

I reached down warily to pat him on the head, wondering what he wanted and how anyone ever lived with a dog. Was your whole life just a long game of charades without ever getting an answer? A Lab had knocked me over when I was three, and it was one of my first memories. I’d never quite gotten over my fear of the unknown with dogs—that this was an animal that you couldn’t control, and at any moment they could jump up, or lunge, or bite you.

Brad rose up on his back legs and waved his paws again, which wasn’t any answer I could translate. He seemed to want something, so I picked him up, holding him away from my body, wondering what happened now. He’d stopped whimpering, though, which I counted as a positive. The train lurched suddenly, and for one heart-stopping moment I thought I was going to drop the dog. But I managed to pull him against my body and brace myself on the pole with my back, and when the train—and I—had achieved some equilibrium, I shifted him so that I was holding him with one arm against my chest, the other holding tightly to the pole.