“I swear I wasn’t looking for him.”
That should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Because if he hadn’t been looking for Cooper, then what happened felt even bigger.
Like the world had decided those two needed to meet again whether I wanted it or not.
I called Cooper.
He looked at me.
But he didn’t come.
That hurt more than I expected.
“Cooper.”
This time he walked over.
Slowly.
He stood between us.
Wade wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that.”
“I know.”
He held out the sandwich.
I took it.
Cooper watched carefully.
“Why did you give him up?”
The question came out harder than I meant it to.
Wade looked toward the floor.
“I didn’t want to.”
Nobody says they wanted to.
I knew that.
But I wanted him to say something that would make this simple.
I wanted him to tell me he had gotten tired of Cooper.
That Cooper had been inconvenient.
That he had moved somewhere dogs weren’t allowed and decided furniture mattered more.
Anything.
Something I could hate.
Instead Wade said, “I ran out of places for both of us to sleep.”
That shut me up.
He rubbed one hand over the other.
“I had been doing overnight maintenance. Then my hours got cut. Then the room I was renting disappeared.”
He looked at Cooper.
“I kept thinking I’d fix it.”
His voice dropped.
“I kept thinking one more week.”
I knew that sentence.
I had lived inside that sentence.
Wade continued.
“I was sleeping in my truck for a while.”
He pointed at Cooper.
“He was still eating.”
Then he touched his own chest.
“I wasn’t always.”
There it was.
The food.
The bread.
The crackers.
The granola bars beside the door.
The whole strange language Cooper had taught himself.
I felt my anger lose its footing.
Wade nodded toward my apartment.
“I’m guessing he still does it.”
I didn’t answer.
“He used to hide food in my work boots.”
I looked at him.
Wade smiled a little.
“Drove me crazy.”
I hated how familiar that sounded.
“I found crackers in mine.”
“Yeah.”
For one second, we almost laughed.
Then I remembered he was the reason Cooper knew what hunger looked like.
The laugh died.
Wade saw it happen.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You think I failed him.”
I looked at Cooper.
“I think he was scared enough to spend years worrying people might leave hungry.”
Wade didn’t defend himself.
That made it worse.
He just nodded.
“You’re right.”
I expected an excuse.
He didn’t give me one.
“I did fail him.”
Cooper walked back to Wade.
Wade didn’t touch him this time.
He kept both hands at his sides.
“But giving him up was the last thing I had left to do right.”
I felt something tighten behind my ribs.
Wade looked at me.
“I know that sounds backwards.”
It didn’t.
That was the problem.
It made perfect sense.
He said he had taken Cooper to the shelter almost two years earlier.
He had stayed in the parking lot for over an hour afterward.
Then he drove away because coming back inside would have been for him, not for Cooper.
A few months later, Wade found steady work in another town.
He rented a room.
Then a small apartment.
By the time he went back to ask about Cooper, he learned someone had adopted him.
He hadn’t known Cooper had later been returned.
He hadn’t known I had him.
“I figured he had a family,” Wade said.
He looked at Cooper.
“I told myself that was enough.”
I folded my arms.
“Was it?”
Wade took a long time to answer.
“No.”
At least he told the truth.
He reached down slowly.
Cooper pushed his nose into Wade’s hand before Wade could touch him.
That was when jealousy arrived.
I’m not proud of it.
But it did.
I had spent months learning Cooper.
I learned he didn’t like metal bowls because the sound of his tags hitting the side made him nervous.
I learned he refused to walk over sidewalk grates.
I learned he slept better when the bedroom door stayed open.
I knew he liked scrambled eggs but would spit out carrots like they had personally offended him.
I knew the look he gave me when I tried to pretend I had already eaten.
I knew the difference between his “someone is outside” bark and his “you have been in the bathroom too long” bark.
I had stayed.
I had changed my routines.
