He lifted her again and set her down on the couch next to him. He waited until she closed her eyes and began breathing heavily in sleep before he went into the kitchen to dial the number on the “Pet 911” magnet the vet had given him when he had first adopted her.

Rob angrily dialed the 1-800 number, which forced him to hunt for the digits that corresponded to the letters p, e, and t.

A man answered the phone.

“Well, sir, you can bring her in, but it’s about one in the morning, and we see dogs in order of the severity of their emergency,” the hotline man said. “If she’s no longer having a seizure and she’s asleep, I’d recommend waiting until tomorrow.”

Rob made an appointment with the animal hospital for the next day and returned to the couch, where Liz still snoozed, her smooth canine torso expanding and contracting with each breath.

He stayed up watching her, the television still on the floor, until he fell asleep by her side.

When they went to the hospital in the morning, she was diagnosed quickly. It was canine epilepsy. A common disorder.

“I didn’t know dogs got epilepsy,” Rob said to the vet, a short, round, middle-aged woman with thinning hair.

“Why wouldn’t they?” she answered, too sharply for his fragile state.

Showing no sympathy, the doctor laid it out for him in simple terms. Liz’s condition could be temporarily controlled with medicine, which would cost about seventy-five dollars a month. Eventually, though, the attacks would become more frequent and the dog would have to be put down.

“How much time does she have?” Rob asked, whispering, as if he didn’t want Liz to hear.

“She could live one, maybe even two years before the attacks become too frequent to manage and too painful for the pet,” the doctor said. “It’s an expensive commitment, and she’s well past her salad days. If you choose to put her down now, we can accommodate that request.”

Rob, who sat across from the vet in a fabric chair covered in dog hair, looked down silently at Liz, who was back on her feet and pressing her head against his leg lovingly.

“Sir,” the doctor said in a softer voice, “maybe you should take a few days and think about it.”

That night in bed, with Liz at his feet, he did the math. Twelve hundred dollars a year in meds and blood tests, plus the dog food. Plus the three hundred dollars he no longer had coming in from Lucy for rent.

“Fuck it,” he said out loud, causing Liz to lift her head and look at him woozily.

The next day Rob picked up a prescription for the pills, which he mixed with the dog’s dry food, as recommended. The vet’s pharmacist also advised Rob to consider finding a home with more open space. The safest place for a dog to have a seizure would be on a soft lawn where there would be room to twitch and run from side to side without bumping into anything sharp.