Where She Goes, I Go

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My dog, Daisy, has always known when something isn’t right. This story is based on a time when everything around me — and inside me — felt broken. A time when I didn’t move much. Didn’t smile much. Didn’t feel like myself at all. But Daisy stayed close. She didn’t ask for explanations. She just waited. This is her story, told through her eyes. Because when I couldn’t speak, she still understood. And when it was finally time to start again, she came with me. Always.

I knew something was wrong when she stopped opening the blinds. The mornings used to be slow and golden. She’d stretch, whisper things to me in that half-sleep voice, and the light would spill across the couch like it belonged there. But lately, the room stays dim. She stays curled. She talks less. Now the sun knocks and nobody answers.

She wears the same soft pants every day, and not the kind she calls “adventure pants.” These ones don’t leave the bed. They collect crumbs. I sniff them sometimes, just to remember what her movement smelled like. I curl up at the foot of the bed and watch her back rise and fall like she’s barely floating. Some days, she doesn’t get up until the sky turns orange.

There are paper bags that come to the door now, not people. Not real food. The crinkly kind she used to share fries from. But now she eats them in bed, silent, like she’s not really tasting anything. Sometimes she doesn’t eat at all. Sometimes she cries into the pillow and I press my nose into her ribs and she says, “Not now, baby.”

I don’t mind. I wait.

The leash hasn’t jingled in days. When it does, she flinches. She says “walk” like it’s a punishment to herself. I still want to go. I always want to go. But her energy spills out before we even reach the door.

We don’t go far anymore. She looks at the trees like they’re reminding her of something she’s trying not to think about. The walks used to make her laugh. She’d let me lead, jog behind me, play tug-of-war with sticks too big for her arms. Now she moves like her shoes are full of cement. I trot beside her without pulling. It feels like I’m dragging something heavy that isn’t mine.

One day, she sits in the car in her scrubs and cries hard. Her hands shake on the steering wheel. I’m in the passenger seat, trying not to whine, but my chest feels tight. She leans over and wraps her arms around me and whispers, “You deserve better than this. I love you too much to let you go.”

I don’t understand what that means, but her mouth smells like heartbreak and coffee, and I lick her chin.

She doesn’t sit in the living room anymore. I hate that. The couch misses her. The recliner misses her. That was our place — she’d kick it up, and I’d scratch my back against the footrest and wiggle until she laughed so hard she dropped the remote. That laugh hasn’t been around in a while. Now the couch is cold. Sometimes I sit on it and stare at the hallway like she might walk through. She never does. She’s always in the bed now. Or staring at the kitchen counter like it’s trying to win.

She comes home from work later. Her scrubs are wrinkled. Her eyes are far away. She lays next to me and says nothing for hours. Just breathes. I press my head against her shoulder and wait for her to come back.

I would wait forever.

Then something changes.

She starts moving again. Not joyfully, not yet, but urgently. The phone rings all the time. She prints things. Signs things. Mutters under her breath. A different kind of panic. A forward panic.

She starts asking me questions in that voice she uses when she’s thinking about the future but not sure if it’s real yet.

“What do you think about going somewhere new?”

“Would you like more room to run?”

“Wanna go on an adventure with Mama?”

I wag, even though I don’t know what it means. But her eyes are wet and her voice is soft and I feel something in her shift, like a light behind a wall flickering back on.

She hugs me longer now.

Says things like,

“We’re gonna do better.”

“We’re gonna live somewhere better.”

“We’re gonna be together more.”

I don’t know where we’re going. But she smells like hope again. It’s faint. But it’s there.

The bag I hate comes out of the closet.

Not the backpack she takes on walks, not the overnight one for short trips. The big one. The one that always means she’s going far. I stare at it from the hallway. She doesn’t pack it all at once, just little pieces at a time, like she’s afraid to commit. Like she’s still not sure if she’s going to run or turn around.

She talks to herself more now.

“I can’t stay here.”

“They don’t care about me.”

“I’m not gonna rot for them.”

I don’t know who “they” are. I only know she looks lighter when she says it. Angry, but lighter. Like maybe all that sleeping was her way of disappearing, and now she’s trying to find the edges of herself again.

She puts my blanket in the car. The back seat smells like me now. We drive for a long time. Longer than to the vet. Longer than to the woods. This is different.

She brings snacks but doesn’t eat. She keeps checking the mirrors. She holds the steering wheel like she’s trying not to snap it in half. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, she says things like:

“We’re gonna start over.”

“You’ll have space to run.”

“No more crying in break rooms. No more apologizing for being soft.”

I don’t know what any of that means. But I stay close. I press my head against her arm when we stop for gas. She looks at me like I’m the only real thing left in the world.

Eventually, the trees change. The air smells different. The road is longer and quieter and nothing loops back around. We’re not going home. But she didn’t leave me behind. And that’s all I need to know.

It’s warm here. The air hums differently. She breathes easier. The porch light flickers on without anyone touching it.

After her shift, she still moves slow, but now it’s the good kind of tired. She kicks off her shoes in the sand and pulls the tennis ball from her pocket like it’s treasure.

“Ready, baby?” she asks.

I already am.

She throws.

I run.

The water touches my

paws.

The sky is purple.

She laughs — and this time,

she means it.

And I know… we made it.