“Going home?”

“No. Well, my father’s home.”

“Not your home?”

“Hasn’t been for a long time.”

“But you don’t live around here.”

“No. I just found myself here. A long story.”

We sit quietly for a time, watching the gradual lengthening of those shadows. I study the bus schedule as if it’s tea leaves. I look in vain for a faster, cheaper, more convenient bus that will magically transport me to Boston.

“So, where is home?” His voice is still just above a whisper, making his question seem far more philosophical than the simple words would suggest.

And then it hits me. Why not just go back? Turn around and wait for Artie to come back to town and show up at the bar. And then I will kill him. The logic of this is breathtaking. In the next breath, I realize that the chance that Artie will show up in that bar without my dog is a chance I do not want to take. No, I’ve got to catch up with him.

I finally answer the old man. “Where my dog is.”

“I had a good dog once. Saw me through a lot of years of hard times. Never once complained.”

“They rarely do.” I shoulder my duffel and go back into the store. When I come out, the old man is gone.

* * *

I hunker down in the bus seat, sitting toward the rear, left side, against the window, which is streaked with the dried paths of raindrops from some past storm. I am bone-tired. My dinner of microwaved burrito is sitting uncomfortably mid-belly. I’ve smuggled a can of Coke onto the bus to wash away the metallic taste of prepackaged food. Thirty miles is far enough to catch a quick nap, and I close my eyes. But the image of my dog rests behind them and all I see is his little silver-and-white face, with the dollops of black eyebrows over those mismatched eyes. I named him Maksim after that ballroom dancer on Dancing with the Stars. I am an unabashed fan of that show, although the only ballroom dancing I ever did was in junior high when the phys ed teachers made us all learn the box step, even though disco was the rage. Everyone thinks I named him that because we dance together, but the truth is, canine freestyle came well after I’d named my puppy.

Rodney Parris gave me the puppy. He was a nice guy with an unfortunate handicap—he was married. I didn’t know that, of course. I’ve never dated married men, and have been cautious around those who claim to be “separated.” But he was married, and that was a very disappointing fact to me, because I really liked him. He was the first guy in a long time to make me glad he was around. Having discovered the wife—or rather, she discovered me—I told him good-bye. I shut the door in his face, turned my back to it, and slid to the floor. I’ve broken up too many times to forget that the pain does go away, but in that moment I was crushed. My little puppy, maybe four months old at this point, dashed over to where I sat on the floor and dropped his teddy bear in my lap. I burst into tears, me, a noncrier, and he looked at me with such worry. Sniffing back the momentary deluge, I hugged him and swore then that he was all the man I’d ever need.