Like soft breath February’s sun warms the surfaces it touches unlike December’s light that strikes a cheek a bare hand or lips and blows away. It’s 20 degrees but the sun is gaining its strength back as winter struggles to keep its place, its shoulder against the door. An earlier sunrise and slightly longer days push back. With my face turned toward early morning it warms me.

Lily turns dog food into puddles that freeze and harden and from nowhere possums lurk in shadows waiting to creep up to the buffet.

I wake before the early alarm and watch the clock add a minute to 5:18 5:19 5:20. No time to sleep the alarm will soon pry apart my closed eyes and mysteriously blend its way into last-minute dreams. I see faces from work and my cats are in the room and somewhere I look for the radio to stop it smash it and find relief in the exertion I realize it’s the Alarm.

Jerry. Jerry? The alarm went off, I tell him. I hope he either gets up soon, or lets me sleep. Suddenly he is up and crawling to get out of bed and I look at the clock. Seven minutes left and I spend them worrying about work Lily Jerry my job if I should stay if I should go why am I so afraid of taking a chance at something else did I pay the mortgage why can’t I just stay asleep?

I hear the shower as Jerry -- happily -- starts his day.

Where are my hiking shoes?

Out in the woods with Lily the sky brightens a stick our path stones that I hop across like they’re steps through a stream.

My shadow hits the ground and slices across a sudden whiskey hue that splashed leaves rocks trees and lights the strands of Lily’s fur and pools in her eyes. We stop and I turn to look over my shoulder past trees that stand both indifferent and firm. Through them is a common sight and a treasure as light stretches like a candle’s flame flickering above a dip in the horizon. It’s the sunrise Lily! Look.

A scream comes and it is close and piercing; familiar but louder. A red-tailed hawk reaches outward with its wings then floats to a perfect stop on a branch. Lily stares. Sunlight passes through her eyes like smoke.

Back home I step down into the basement. Oh. It’s everywhere in pools like some oblivious fool kept spilling slop all over the place and I go through nearly a full roll of paper towels to clean everything that I fed Lily last night. Again I drop into plastic bags and throw away all the food that should have soaked into her starving muscles blood bones and body.

Nancy at work asks me if I would consider again using a crate. As we discovered with her visit to the vet overnight, she had sat in her kennel and held it.

Well, that’s less for me to clean, but does Lily live in a crate all night? What about the daytime? Nope, I’ll wait until she is well.

This morning somewhere between the floor and my pocket of warmth where I slept I feel the atmosphere thicken. My head is heavy and I feel sudden pressure in my eye sockets. Today we wait for snow that will bury everything and we’ll wake with hope and reassess the world in its new clothes.

Guess where I am, Jerry asks me. I get his call late in the day. The woods?

Yup, all four of ‘em. Hershey Bandit Ozzy and Lily.

I drive home later that night and wait for a snow I know is coming. The clouds above press down and as I stand watching Lily squat everything is still like it’s sealed in place and I should remember this, a perfect model of quiet and of ordinary. Tomorrow I’ll call the vet to find out about Lily’s blood tests.