A Three-Legged Dog, a Gas Station, and a Family I Didn’t Know I Had
I’m Caleb, twenty-six, and I spend more time on the road than in my apartment. I deliver medical supplies—oxygen tanks, refrigerated meds, last-minute pharmacy runs. Snow, ice, dark roads that hide every curve.
My partner is Mooney, a three-legged yellow Lab with a scar down his shoulder and an ego bigger than my truck’s cab. I didn’t pick him to have a dog. I picked him to keep from disappearing.
After my best friend Bennett was killed overseas, one of our unit handed me a skinny, injured Lab. “Bennett said, ‘If I don’t make it, give him to Caleb,’” the guy said. Mooney came home with me. He learned stairs, treats, and which neighbors were safe. He also learned when I was spiraling, and he’d wedge his head into my lap until I came back to earth.
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