The Color of Goodbye

Emma had been running for three months when she found the dog.

Not running in the literal sense—she'd left her jogging shoes in the closet since the divorce—but running away from the silence that had settled into her apartment like dust. She ran from her mother's phone calls, from the empty side of the bed, from the mirror that showed her the fine lines gathering around her eyes like storm clouds.

The dog was a golden retriever mix, tangled and matted, curled behind the dumpster behind her office building. Emma had stepped out for air during yet another meeting where her team discussed budget cuts with the enthusiasm of people arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

"Hey there," she said, and the dog lifted its head, eyes dark and knowing. Something in her chest cracked open.

She brought it home, bathed it, discovered under all that filth the most ridiculous shade of orange fur she'd ever seen. The color of sunset, of traffic cones, of the dress she'd worn to her twenty-first birthday when she still believed the world would bend to her will.

She named him Rusty.

That night, she stood in her kitchen making dinner for the first time in weeks. Just spinach, wilted with garlic, because the doctor had mentioned her iron levels during her last physical, another item on the list of things she was failing to maintain properly. The spinach turned dark in the pan, releasing the smell of earth and rain.

Rusty sat at her feet, watching her with unwavering attention. Emma slid down to sit on the floor, her back against the cabinets, and buried her face in his orange fur.

"I'm thirty-eight years old," she whispered to him. "I should have this figured out by now."

The dog leaned into her, solid and warm, and Emma realized she hadn't been touched—really touched—in six months.

The next morning, she laced up her running shoes. Just around the block, she told herself. Just to see. Rusty trotted beside her, his orange coat bright against the gray morning. They moved together, her breathing falling into rhythm with his pace, and for the first time in months, Emma wasn't running away.

She was running toward something, even if she couldn't yet say what it was.