I cross my fingers and feel no more lucky than the little Monopoly man lifting his top hat in greeting. He wants to be ingratiating like a pearl rather than a sliver. He wants to be taller.

Will Lily's new enzyme treatment soak into her deflated muscle and flesh? Will her stomach and intestines take what they need from the food I give her and infuse her little body with the stuff that keeps us going everyday over and over again and sending us the energy we need to wake and smile love breath tie our shoes hope sneeze and wrap our arms around someone we want to keep forever every time we blink and during the pause in between?

Rocking in the unfinished wooden chair Jerry tells me, I hope this is it. I really do.

The vet said it would not be immediate. We should watch for changes….I lean on the mantle and look at an ornamental blue birdhouse my mother gave me. It has a dented aluminum roof and chipped paint.

Driving later I say, maybe by Friday I'll have confidence that this is the right and she'll be better. Jerry nods and I steer us through roads soaking back into the earth as daylight fades and the blacktop's surface is more of an assumption as I squint at oncoming headlights and look for my turn.

The piles she left on the floor have changed color and I want to report fewer messes, but I am not sure. The house is infused with stink when we get home and it's all coming from this one innocent, lopsided little pile growing cold on the tile floor. The vet had asked me about smell, but it was far gentler than this. Does digestion create this stink? I hope so.

Lily sleeps and I do not hear the sound of what I imagine to be a huge, damp bubble shoving itself through intestines stretching and hurrying this imposition along. Is her food sitting quietly in line and wandering through her gut without a rush and all the noise I have listened to for weeks?

I won't run with her in the mornings as of now. Too much exercise. The vet said: no jogging! How did he know? Makes sense to me. We have hours and days of reassembly to do. Then we'll exercise. Then we'll do some training. Then we'll be better.

I want to be hopeful, and if I were a kid I'd be sure that with the right combination of adults that the world could be saved. But I am the adult and I have learned that luck is something that happens when you try hard enough, and only if you are lucky.