“You OK, Ted?” It is the man with hair the color of orange juice. He takes his big dog to the woods each day.

I say, “Oh sure, fine.” The man is looking at my feet. I realize that I am not wearing shoes or socks. My feet are white and hairy. I cover one foot with the other but it doesn’t make me feel any better. The dog pants and grins at me. Pets are better than their owners in general. I feel bad for all those dogs and cats and rabbits and mice. They have to live with people but, worse, they have to love them. Now, Olivia is not a pet. She’s so much more than that. (I expect everyone feels this about their cat.)

When I think about a Murderer creeping around my house in the cold dark, laying traps in my yard—maybe even peering in, watching me, Lauren and Olivia with their dead beetle eyes—my heart stutters.

I come back. The Chihuahua lady is standing right up close. Her hand is on my shoulder. That’s unusual. People don’t like to touch me, as a rule. The dog under her arm trembles, stares about with bulging eyes.

I am standing in front of the Chihuahua lady’s house, which is yellow with green trim. I feel I have just forgotten something, or am just about to know it. Sharpen up, I tell myself. Don’t be weird. People notice weird. They remember.

“… your poor foot,” the woman is saying. “Where are your shoes?” I know the tone. Small women want to take care of big men. It is a mystery. “You got to look after yourself, Ted,” she says. “Your mother would be worried sick about you.”

I see that my foot is leaking—a dark red trickle across the concrete. I must have stepped on something. “I’m chasing that stray,” I say. “I mean, I was chasing her. I don’t want her to get the birds in my yard.” (I don’t always get tenses right. Everything always feels like it’s happening now and sometimes I forget it actually happened then.)

“It’s a real shame, that cat,” she says. Interest lights up her eyes. I have given her something else to feel. “The thing is a pest. The city should deal with stray cats like they do the other vermin.”

“Oh, I agree,” I say. “Sure.”

(I don’t recall names but I have my ways of judging and remembering people. The first one is: would they be kind to my cat? I would not let this woman near Olivia.)

“Anyway, thanks,” I say. “I feel better now.”

“You bet,” she says. “Come and have iced tea tomorrow. I’ll make cookies.”

“I can’t tomorrow.”

“Well, any time. We’re neighbors. We have to look out for each other.”

“That’s what I always say.” I am polite.