The recovery ward was busy at first, and an emergency procedure kept her away longer than expected. Her first break, normally around one, did not happen until almost two.
When Elena finally entered the ward, Grosso was sitting upright.
His food had been eaten.
His water bowl had been touched.
Nothing was wrong.
Yet he was awake.
Waiting.
The moment Elena appeared, his body softened.
He lowered himself carefully, shifted toward the kennel door, and put his head against her leg.
Elena sat there for nearly forty minutes.
The hospital could survive without her coffee break for one night.
She stroked the fur between Grosso’s ears and thought about Leonard coming home from the diner at 5:30.
She thought about a dog listening to cars for days.
She thought about every door Grosso had probably watched since then.
Then she realized something that changed the decision.
Grosso did not need a life where nobody ever left him.
Such a life did not exist.
People went to work.
They went to grocery stores.
They entered hospitals and sometimes never came home.
Dogs moved between rooms.
Families changed.
The promise Elena could actually make was smaller and more honest.
When she left, she would do everything in her power to come back.
That morning, she did not allow the rescue van to leave with Grosso.
She did not simply take him home either.
Instead, Elena completed an application to foster him herself.
Karen laughed when she saw it.
“You know we could have saved ourselves some driving.”
“I needed to know I wasn’t doing something stupid.”
“And?”
“I may still be doing something stupid.”
Karen smiled.
“That’s most fostering.”
Elena brought Grosso home the following afternoon.
The first hours were nothing like a sentimental adoption commercial.
Grosso inspected every room carefully.
He disliked the washing machine.
He refused to walk through the narrow doorway into Elena’s laundry room.
He stood in the kitchen for several minutes staring at the refrigerator when the ice maker started.
Then he found the front door.
He lay beside it.
Elena had expected that.
She placed his bed several feet away.
Grosso ignored it.
At bedtime, he remained near the entrance.
Elena did not move him.
Around three in the morning, she woke and checked.
He was still there.