You better take her out, Jerry tells me.

I sigh.

What? Why are you like that every time I say something about her?

I say, ya know, before I met you I did think for myself.

Nothing, no reply he is gone. He is in the kitchen and I am by the front door shoving my arms into a too big jacket.

Standing outside with Lily at 10 pm I look back and see my footprints pressed into the snow marking the little incremental places I have been. A spotlight behind us throws our shadows. Missing the shed and flying into the woods is a dark shape like Lily. She is 40 feet long and her ears are huge. My shadow crashes into the shed a few feet away where I am squat and hunched over in the cold with a hood squeezed over my head.

Covered in snow are the butterscotch colored puddles that Lily leaves behind. I should feed her a bright green marble and see how long that takes to pass. We turn and our shadows disappear, replaced by mini pools of darkness filling our footsteps where the light cannot reach. I want to poke a finger into one of those pools like a hole in the snow, then lift it -- a favorite quilt to wrap around me for comfort. Maybe happiness will make me nicer.

Earlier I called the vet. Any results for her blood test, I ask? Not for seven to ten days, he tells me. I would rather not hear something from his standard menu. I was hoping for something warmer. I was hoping for an answer. Why the diarrhea? When will it stop?

What’s the matter Lily, I hear Jerry say. I ask him, well, what?

Her stomach is gurgling.

Every night Jerry goes to bed and I go downstairs for a glass of wine and I read. Lily follows she is right on track like a bead of water slipping down a braided rope. She folds up and rests on her pillow and after a few minutes I hear something new. Something reassuring. Her breathing is shallow and steady. She is asleep. her stomack gurgles. Jerry had told me that no matter what, whenever he looks at her she is looking back. Now, she sleeps.

She might not make it, a co-worker told me. I think: I have never heard of a dog crapping herself to death … but if I say that out loud some helpful person will offer a correction, the answer bursting from them as if they have wandered the planet looking for a place to put this rotten knowledge.

Sunday at the bar I am pouring a Bass and I look up to see a familiar face. The last time I saw Charlie he stood with drizzle clinging to his hair and clothes. He held the end of her leash and Lily sat alert at his feet. Quietly that day he had said: bye, I love you Lily. I hear it too often in my head. He had led her over to my truck and closed the door.

Hello Charlie, I say. He drinks a gin and tonic. I press a lime around the rim of his glass and wonder if he wants Lily back. Could I let her go? Could I keep her from someone who loves her?

He waves tags at me. The rabies and licensing tags he promised.

How is she? The bar is busy I can’t talk and keep shouting replies over my shoulder as I reach for a Bud reach for the rum reach for the ice and fill a glass.

She’s a good girl, he says. She is a good girl, I tell Charlie.

I added up my vet bills for Lily and they came to the price if a crappy used car. Runs good, needs work. Yup. Thank you Jerry. He is my mechanic for many things.

We waited days and days for a heavy snow to come. Yesterday the night quieted -- its ears pressed to the door and listening for a storm. I got excited thinking that snow is pretty. This snow was supposed to be huge! I went to bed with the feeling like it was Christmas Eve, except it was nothing like Christmas Eve.