Chapter 16 — Lia

I went to the shelter by myself in May.

I want to be clear that I didn’t tell anyone and that I knew it was a slightly unhinged thing to do and I did it anyway. I got the bus. It’s two buses.

I went because I had been thinking about the fact that I have no memory of that building. My mother has an entire scene — the concrete floor, the leash, the tech pretending to check paperwork — and it is one of the best things that has ever happened to anyone in our family, and I wasn’t there.

I was in a hotel, asleep, being written about.

So I wanted to stand in it.

It’s a low grey building with a chain-link run at the side and it smells like disinfectant and wet dog, and I walked down the kennel row to the end and stood in front of the last run for a while, which had a boxer in it who was extremely unimpressed with me.