The will reading should have been quiet, boring even—something you endure with stiff coffee and polite grief until it’s done. That’s what I expected when I walked into Mr. Harper’s office with Bailey at my heel, his old paws clicking against the tile, his cloudy eyes blinking like the fluorescent lights hurt. I was twenty-seven and exhausted in that hollow, post-funeral way where your body keeps moving but your brain hasn’t accepted the world has changed. My grandmother—Marg to everyone who loved her—had been the only person who felt like a safe place.

She had a small blue house at the edge of town, a kitchen that always smelled like cinnamon and warm butter, and a way of making you feel like showing up mattered more than being impressive. I’d been the one who showed up. I brought her groceries. I fixed her TV when the screen went black. I sat beside her in hospice while the daylight shifted through the blinds and her breathing got quieter, until it finally stopped. Bailey had been there too, curled on the floor like a faithful shadow, and when her heart gave out, he made a sound so soft and broken it still echoed in my chest.