Chapter 41

Harvey

A drawing of Harvey resting on his stomach, with his head up and his ears perked.

Despite looking comfortable on Maggie’s bed, Harvey is unsettled. All around him, things are different.

First, there is the matter of outside. Despite his best efforts to pee in every corner, and keeping a vigilant watch at the sliding doors, something is still coming into his yard. He could smell it when he was let out in the morning.

Then there is the change in his Maggie. She used to carry herself lightly. Her steps skipped and Harvey had to be quick to keep up. Now, her feet are heavy. Her gait is weighted down, thoughtful.

An air of burden swims around his Maggie and Harvey doesn’t know how to make it go away. Today, when she came home, Harvey ran to the door to greet her, jumping with excitement at her return. Harvey has no sense of time. Her absence could have been five minutes or five hours and his reaction would have been the same. Harvey wants nothing more than to be with his Maggie.

Maggie says a quick hello to her mom and goes upstairs to her room with Harvey at her heels. Harvey would love a walk and gently nips at her fingers while she’s patting him. “Not now, Harvs,” Maggie says. “I have stuff to do.”

She sits down at her desk, then pulls notebooks and pens out of her backpack. Harvey isn’t ready to give up. He sniffs out Maggie’s feet and starts to yank on one sock, determined to pull it off. The wiggling toes surprise and delight him, but what he really wants is that tasty sock. Maggie giggles and kicks her feet away. Spurred on by her laughter, he redoubles his efforts, digging his hind legs in and clamping his teeth on the stretchy fabric. A sock will be his!

After working hard, he’s rewarded and leaps up onto Maggie’s bed with one sock dangling out of his mouth. He lies down so he can keep an eye on her. From under his feathery white lashes he sees her check her phone and make a noise of disappointment, the same sound he gets when he has an accident on the carpet. He lifts his head. Has he done something wrong? Maggie keeps staring at her phone. Even from where he sits on the bed, he can feel her body tense. His Maggie is angry. She tosses her phone to the bed, narrowly missing Harvey.