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"Well, Jack is here to tell the tale," I said "So I guess she wasn’t safe"

Loyd sot into soht after that He died before the pups were born"

"How do you know they were his? She could have been pregnant already"

Loyd asked Jack, as politely as you’d ask a favor from a friend, to roll over "See that?" Over Jack’s heart was a white patch with a black crescent moon in its center "That’s Gunner’s There were seven pups, two black and five brown, and every one of thee"

"How did you knohich one to keep?"

He hesitated "Dad decided," he said finally "And Jack Really I guess Jack’s the one that decided"

They were nothing electrifying, these chats with Loyd in the dark, but they were a relief froh school, which were spent in a standoff just shy of open war Occasionally Loyd took the tips of ers and rubbed them absentmindedly between his own, the way he would surely stroke Jack, if Jack had fingers The night of the story of Jack, he also kissed me before he left, and I was surprised by how I responded Kissing Loyd was delicious, like soeon General’s warning Later on, when I slept, I had dreams of coyotes in heat

I also saw Hallie Her hairalive "I’ve kissed a man who kills birds," I confessed, but she looked past me as if she didn’t have a sister Her eyes were pale as et up and turn on a light

I’d dreaood reason I could see He’d written me a letter that was fairly h, and that sentiht comfort as I lay in my empty bed It meant I was lonely by choice, or by difficult circus are supposed to feel better than being lonely because nobody wants you Lately I’d started thinking about Carlo with a kind of rous The truth is, we’d essentially pro that ouldn’t stay together "No strings," we said, proving that ereis that we did stay together, physically, and so I suppose falling out of love was our hearts’ way of keeping the bargain The end was always curled up there between us, like a sleeping cat, present even in our love-ether for the first ti our rotation in pediatric intensive care, after we’d worked all night trying to save a Papago baby brought in too late froht from the dead baby to my apartment, my bed There was hardly any talk that I re as our bodies could stand it I wanted anything that would stop that pain, and Carlo was strongjoyful, only medicine

There was one other time of desperate, feverish connection that I particularly re abroad Carlo had been granted the opportunity to spend a year in an unbelievably remote clinic, halfway up the tallest ed, but in Decee, to Venice The clinic closed for some combination of clan ritual and Greek Orthodox holiday that practically evacuated the village We set off for Italy feeling like truant school kids, drinking wine in tin cups on the train and reeling with the heady sense of getting aith soed an afternoon off, much less a week Then Carlo caht ferry to Brindisi, and by the ti up, our skin hot to the touch, like furnaces Our bodies’ internal co for carbohydrates, and for each other, so we checked into the Penzione Meraviglioso and for a week ate plates of pasta and made a kind of sweaty, delirious love previously unknown to either of us, in a bed that was e

The Penzione looked out onto the cold, damp Grand Canal and a diht Widows (Distraught or Inconvenienced, it could translate either way) The origin of this name was unknown to the elderly ht food up to us and was alternately scandalized by our appetites and worried for our well-being She was of the opinion that in das She ventured to tell us we ought to see a doctor