the one who had wanted the dog. Dan had told Veronica she could have a dog. Why, Natalie wondered, should she be the one left with him after everyone else had moved on?
And yet, when the time came, she hadn’t been able to do it. Days after the house sold, when she was starting to pack in earnest, Bowzer rallied. He jumped up beside her in bed one night, just as he’d done as a puppy, nestling against her chest. During the day, he lay on the floor next to whatever box she was packing, chewing his rawhide, his very presence so reassuring, concrete proof that she was not as completely alone as she felt. During that month of packing, she’d tried hard to be ruthless. She had a garage sale and sold everything of Dan’s. He had left only what he had not cared about, and there was little satisfaction in selling, for two dollars, the leather briefcase she had bought him upon his graduation from law school. Or in throwing away the poem she had written for him on their fifteenth anniversary. As for the photo albums, she couldn’t throw them away—most of the pictures of Dan had Elise and Veronica in them. So she packed them all in a box and drove them to Veronica’s dorm. She did not ask. She just handed them over, repeating in her head the mantra Maxine had taught her. Be smart. Start looking out for you.
The day before she moved to the apartment, she’d actually taken Bowzer to the vet. Maxine had offered, several times, to come along; but Natalie had wanted to go alone. That was her first mistake. And then, instead of giving the vet instructions, she’d asked for his opinion. The vet had sighed, bent over, and looked deeply into the dog’s cataracted eyes. “He’s still eating. And getting around okay. I’d say the old boy has some good times left.” He’d scratched the dog’s ears and looked down at him fondly. It was the same vet they’d gone to when Bowzer was a puppy, when the girls were young. Veronica, still in grade school, had cried when he got his distemper shot.
Veronica. Natalie looked out the window again, worried about the coming storm. She reached for the phone, but stopped herself. Veronica would be fine. She took the bus from her dorm to her classes. If she went to her classes. Natalie frowned. Veronica had warned that her grades would be low this semester, and Natalie wondered if she was spending all her time with the boyfriend. She herself had moved in with Dan when she was in school. She’d lied to her parents, her sorority sisters covering for her. They got married a year after she graduated. She’d been in such a hurry.
Someone knocked at the door. Bowzer raised his head and barked, looking in the wrong direction. She put the phone down and stood, peering through the peephole. She recognized the apartment manager’s puffy face and jerked her head away.
“I know yous in there, lady.” He sounded both bored and annoyed. “You want to talk with me through the door so everybody hears, that’s fine. But in the end it’s the same.”
“Uh, just a moment. I’ll be right there.” She picked up Bowzer, one hand supporting his bad hip, and ran back to the bedroom. She’d already put a pillow for him in the closet. “Stay,” she whispered, though she shut the door. Even before his senility, the dog had never been particularly obedient. She ran back to the front room. The hallway in front of her apartment was unheated, and when she opened the door, she felt a wave of cold roll over and through her. Oddly, and unhelpfully, she thought of Twain: Shut the door! Not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the cozyness.
“Yes?” she asked brightly. She knew she had a friendly face, a bright-eyed suburban-mom-liness about her that many people liked and trusted. Her whole life, she had been asked to watch strangers’ bags, bikes, and children. “What is it, dear?” she asked, maybe, in her desperation, piling it on a little hard.
“You know what it is.” He didn’t smile. The apartment manager was in his twenties, maybe, unappealing in every way she could think of, a red ski hat pulled down almost over his eyes. He stood with his legs spread wide, his arms crossed, his chin jutted out so his head tilted back just