Britannia, NY

For the last two weeks Jim has been on leave from his job, leaving the students newly returned to school with a substitute teacher. Canine Companions has a fourteen-day training period where prospective dog owners take an obedience course with their service dogs and get to know them. It's over now, but the upshot is he's home with a black lab that has to wear one of those half-jackets with SERVICE ANIMAL printed on it in big black letters, and she knows when he's feeling sick or strained, can sense even the small changes in his gait when there's pain in his legs.

And Nathan's managed to coax him out on a walk (Sheila does need to be walked) to the bakery. He grips the leash fiercely, still unused to it, but he's getting the idea.

In general he's content these days. He gave up cigarettes for a pipe, he doesn't expect Amanda to call, he pushes away all thoughts of Mike as anything more than a friend. It's just that somehow he still feels unfulfilled; his body still feels emptied out and he's always hungry but never for food. In this regard Sheila is more helpful than for his CP. She's undemanding and solid under his hands, and when she's out of her harness she likes to be scratched and petted. (He wishes this had come to him when he was still a boy, uncertain of himself and shaking, aware of the disappointed eyes of his parents.)

But the walk, at least, is pleasant. He draws his coat a little tighter against the wind, and she looks back over her shoulder at him for a moment.