But there is no e-mail to say “Found your dog.” I scroll down, check the junk-mail folder. I don’t know why I think an e-mail will save my life, but I do, and the lack of an e-mail with that subject line is monstrously disappointing. Alerts have been posted across the country on a million Web sites devoted to lost pets, Shetland sheepdog rescues, animal rights and the like. I follow the list of links Saundra has given me, but not one has a clue as to Mack’s whereabouts, only gentle, supportive comments.

*   *   *

Back at the hospital, Adele is still talking to my comatose father. The relentless beep of the monitor is the only thing telling me that he still lives. I watch it as if it’s live television, rapt with the spikes and valleys of the constantly streaming green line. I really don’t know what it means, just that as long as it maintains its steady beat, we remain here.

I’ve brought back lunch. Adele slides the bedside tray table away from my father, who for some reason has been given lunch, although he is clearly nonfunctioning. She looks at the ham and Swiss on rye with a little twist to her mouth. “No mayonnaise?”

“In the packets, in the bag.”

“These are always so hard to open.”

I take the mayonnaise and the mustard and bite into the tough plastic, ripping both open with my teeth. “Here. Squeeze.”

Adele takes the packets from me like they might be contaminated, but she squeezes both condiments liberally on the bread.

We are on death watch and we eat every bite of our sandwiches.

“I’ve been telling your father that once he’s out of here, we should be thinking about selling the house. We could move into one of those residences they built in that warehouse complex. You actually have a view of the water. The house is too much for him to keep up.”

I look away from staring at the monitor. Adele is fiddling with the arrangement of covers over my father. She is telling my dying father that she has plans; that they’ll take up housekeeping in an expensive retirement community when he dodges death. And then I get it. Adele knows perfectly well that she will be making that move by herself, but she doesn’t want my father, if by some miracle he’s still cogent beneath the surface, to think she’s leaving him behind.

“If you sell your house, you’ll be able to live pretty well. Or maybe sell both houses. That should keep you going for a long time.” I’m just making conversation here, nothing more.

Adele purses her lips in that familiar way I remember so well from my childhood, a sour “I do this for your own good” look she’d get when she was about to impart her peculiar justice. Controlled anger. “What do you know about it?”