I held Terry Johnson on my lap in the blanket, and Kira blew through every stop sign and one red light. I jumped from the still-moving car to race through the doors of the only emergency vet on the island. I passed Terry with trembling arms in his blanket burrito to the waiting vet technicians, who rushed him away through swinging doors. I stood, all of me shaking now and breathing hard, until Sean and Kira were beside me.

“Sit,” Kira said, and Sean brought me a clipboard of paperwork to fill out: address, emergency contact, Terry Johnson’s age, his weight, last vaccines given.

“Dogs are so dumb,” Kira said, her hand on my knee. “But they have iron stomachs. My grandma’s dog ate a diet made almost exclusively of his own poop, and that guy lived to be fourteen. Terry Johnson will be fine. He will.”

Sean stood beside me, his hand stroking my hair. “Is that true?” he asked Kira.

“Mine, too,” the receptionist said, leaning over his desk to pass a box of Kleenex to Sean. “Upside is I never have to clean the yard; downside, you do not want her licking your face.”

“This is chocolate,” I sobbed. “It’s poison. I poisoned him.”

“So is poop,” the receptionist said. “If he was breathing—he was breathing, right?”

“Barely!”

“Takes a lot of chocolate to kill a dog. Try to relax.”

The door opened. Francine walked in, looked at me, and put her hand to her mouth. “Is he gone?”

“He’s with the doctor,” the receptionist said.

“Francine, I’m so sorry, it was an accident—”

Sean brought her a chair, and she sat beside me, unable to speak.

There was a giant bag of jelly beans on the receptionist’s desk. It would always be the smell for Terry Johnson now, the smell of his last day.

I had gotten so used to the clean smell of Francine’s house. Of the soap she used on the sheets and towels; it made me sleep better than I had in years. I liked it so much.

This is not about you, I brain-screamed. Stop crying and take care of Francine! But the harder I tried to stop crying, the more I thought of Terry Johnson curled beside me in bed, keeping me company, waiting for us to come home, making sure I was never lonely.

How many kids had Terry Johnson known? Had they all loved him? Did he love them all? Did he love me?

What had I done?

Francine’s eyes were closed.

I closed mine, too.

Francine reached for my hand and held it. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

I burst into fresh tears.

And then the doctor came out.

—

In the late-afternoon sun, standing on Francine’s porch, we said goodbye to Sean and Kira. Francine hugged them, hard. “You saved us.”