CHAPTER 12

I’d like to look away, but find that I can’t. “Maybe it’s just arrogance that makes us think our own problems are so much bigger than everyone else’s.”

Gabe pulls his gaze from mine, running his fingers down the dog’s injured leg and then gently probing the length of it. “The first time I saw a patient who was obviously being abused by her husband,” he says, “I was determined to make her see why she had to leave him. But that wasn’t something she was ready to hear. Certainly not from me. Somewhere along the way, I learned that the sledgehammer approach wasn’t going to work. Swinging that thing around twenty-four seven didn’t leave me with much energy for the rest. It took me a while to realize that when you step back and look at the big picture, it’s amazing what can be accomplished with a chisel.”

There’s wisdom in the words, and I let them settle around me, feeling as if I’ve been handed a nugget of something valuable, something that might apply to me.

“His leg’s definitely fractured,” Gabe says. “They say how long he’s been in here?”

“Since this morning.”

“No way to guess how old the injury is, but if it’s not taken care of pretty quickly, he could lose this leg.”

I feel instantly sick at the thought, my stomach churning. “What can we do?”

Gabe runs a hand across his jaw, then says, “There’s a twenty-four hour emergency vet hospital about ninety miles from here. You up for a drive?”

My eyes widen. “You mean just take him there?”

“I can’t think of a better option.”

I stare at him for a moment, then say, “Won’t you get in trouble?”

He smiles the smile I am beginning to find more than a little difficult to resist. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I look at this man about whom I know very little, and I suddenly see something in him I used to think was true of myself. A willingness to go out on a limb for something I believe in. I glance at the dog still sitting humbly with his paw off the floor, watching us.

“For me, either,” I say.

Gabe reaches in his bag and pulls out a bottle. “An aspirin should take the edge off until we get there.”

He picks the dog up then and carries him out to the Navigator, placing him carefully in the backseat. The dog whimpers once, stretching out on his side as if the pain is something he has become resigned to.

“It’s going to be better soon, son,” Gabe says, getting in the driver’s seat and pulling out of the parking lot.

We’re quiet the first few minutes of the ride, and I look over my shoulder at the dog, my heart aching for his misery. I wonder what kind of life he’s had. If like most of us, there’s been happiness blended in with the bad. Or if this isn’t the first time he’s been at the mercy of somebody’s boot.