The Beginning of After

look stressed and unhappy until he saw me, and then put on an instant professional smile.
    “Do you ever feel sad about not being a reporter anymore?” I asked him once at lunch when he seemed especially anxious.
    My question had taken him by surprise, and he put down the hamburger he was about to bite into.
    “Well, I miss the work itself. It wasn’t easy, but it was challenging and fun. I don’t miss the instability of it. Not knowing when I’d get an assignment, or if an editor would go for my pitch.”
    “Maybe you could go back to it someday,” I offered. I loved looking at our old newspapers and magazines with his articles, running my finger over his byline on the page.
    He snorted a bit. “With college tuition just around the corner? No, I don’t think so. I made a choice to do something that better supported our family and where I wouldn’t be traveling so much, and I’m good with that.”
    But he'd looked out the window wistfully, and I’d made a vow to myself not to stay in any job I hated.
    “We’ll need to get you some scrubs,” said Eve now, scanning my khaki pants and V-neck top, the most office-worthy thing I could find. “Dr. B is pretty strict about that; he wants us to look professional even if we’re not officially vet techs. There are a couple of hand-me-downs in the back; see what you can find for now. I’ll give you the names of some websites that have cute ones.”
    Eve tugged on her shirt to indicate the inherent cuteness of the dog and cat fairies she was covered with, then the phone rang and she spun away from me to answer it.
    Despite her age, Eve clearly ruled the front desk realm. Tamara, Dr. B’s sister, was the office manager and technically our boss, but she holed up in a small room off the front desk and concentrated on billing. I peeked into her office, and she looked up from something to wave at me, and I waved back.
    I set to work on filing the charts into the wall of cabinets behind the front desk, and listened as Eve handled the phones, taking mental notes because that was going to be part of my job too. I’d arranged to show up at three p.m. every day—after school, as far as they were concerned, because nobody knew that I wasn’t actually going to school—and help out in the front until seven p.m., when the hospital closed. Then I’d be expected to walk the dogs, some of which were boarding, some recovering from surgery or treatment like Masher had been.
    I filed for twenty minutes before Eve came over to check my progress. She didn’t look happy with how big the pile still was, and watched me slide a chart into the stacks.
    “No, uh-uh,” she said. “After you put one back, you have to use your right hand to flip through the next few tabs to make sure it’s in the right place, alphabetically. In the past, charts got filed a little wrong and nobody bothered to fix it. So now we always check.”
    A quick flash of Toby and me working on shelving his DVD collection, him lighting up with pride when he figured out that “McQueen” came before “Master.” It was a trick I’d thought of to help him with reading.
    I got the sense that Eve’s manner, all businesslike and bossy, wasn’t something to take personally. She acted that way with everyone in the office, except the clients, for whom she adopted a more supportive persona, and the pets, for whom she became a sweet, silly, cooing thing. Besides, Eve didn’t know she was supposed to treat me any differently. Being with her, always sensing her critical eye on me, actually felt good.
    I’m just like anyone else.
    I finished the charts and she asked Robert, one of the techs, to cover the phones while she walked me back to the kennels.
    “We have just three dogs at the moment,” she said as we stepped into the room. It had a high ceiling and open skylights, and reminded me of a public restroom where instead of toilet stalls, there were cages. The barking started the instant we opened the door, as if we’d tripped a wire.
    “These two guys are boarding for the week,” said Eve, crouching down to eye level with a pair of cocker spaniels sharing one kennel. “They’re a little hyper. When you walk them, they’re capable of pulling you over. I’ll show you how to keep them in line.”
    Eve let the dogs lick her face as she murmured, “Hi, babies . . . yes . . . yes . . . you’re beautiful . . . I love your kisses . . .” and I actually had to look away.
    I turned to the third