Page 30 of Wayfarers

“It sounds like you want a lecture,” he says. “How big is Winslow? Eighty pounds?”

“Eighty-five. Eighty-five pounds of wiggle. I did train him.”

“To do what?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I took him to the puppy classes at PetSmart. I got the clicker and the training treats. We were doing really well, and then . . .”

A moment passes. “Then?” he asks.

“I guess I was the only one in my house, like, enforcing any of it. My mom feeds him a whole chicken breast when she cooks.”

“Whoa.”

“She doesn’t cook that often.”

“Still. That’s a lot of food.”

“I know. It’s like she thinks goldens are too good-natured to need any discipline, and it’s not like Winslow would ever bite anyone, or hurt another dog, or do anything but love someone to death—”

“Or try out to be a sled dog. With you attached to his leash.”

“Right? I don’t think discipline ever hurts anyone.”

He’s looking at me. “No?”

“That’s the kind of thing you say when you want someone to keep talking.”

“Well. I guess I want you to keep talking. What kind of discipline?”

“What do you think I mean?” I don’t say it in a flirty way. I want to know what he’s seeing: his head tilted back, his eyes on mine.

“Discipline, like, you make yourself read the big Russian novel because it’s good for you, and starting a book is like making a promise? Or discipline like, you only eat vegetables and run a mile every morning and get A’s in all your classes? Or discipline like, you don’t let yourself act in any way that dislodges your moral compass?”

I drop his gaze. “The first two. And maybe the third. I don’t know. I feel like any principles I have are sort of . . . fake ones.”

“How?”

“I don’t think the values you talk about when people are watching count for anything. The, like, Sunday routines that you film for social media, I mean. Or writing your college essay about your soup kitchen work. You’re erasing its worth by parading it in front of other people.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The world wants a lot of things from us, and I’m good at doing what other people want me to do. I know that about myself. What I don’t know is who I am when I’m alone.”

Knox ER

When the nurse asked me my full name

I didn’t stumble like I did with Sylvie,

in my delirium of pain. I don’t mean to be rude,

ma’am, but I’m not telling because I can’t pay

and I don’t think you’re allowed

to deny me treatment, like, under the law, right?

Yet another bleeding-the-Beast trick