SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY

They came in at twenty past four on the Thursday, which is our slow hour, and I was at the sink at the back with eleven steel bowls and a cloth.

The boy was about fourteen. Grey hoodie, dark jeans, black canvas shoes with the sides gone soft. The girl was maybe ten and she had a fist in the back of his hoodie and did not let go of it once in the forty minutes they were in that building.

Ray Pruitt was on the desk. Ray is forty-five, keeps the polo shirt very white, and has run that shelter for six years without once learning the name of any animal in it.

The boy put a hundred-dollar bill on the counter, folded twice, warm from being held.

"I'm here for a blue heeler," he said. "Came in Saturday off Pike Road."

Ray typed for a while, which he does whether or not there is anything to type.

"Impound, boarding, vaccination, chip scan, holding fee." He turned the screen round about ten degrees, which is not far enough to read it. "Six-forty. No payment, no dog."

The girl made a sound. Not a word.

"He's my mom's dog," the boy said.

"Then your mom can come pay for him."

And the boy said it flat, the way you say a thing you have already had to say to four adults that week and have stopped expecting anything from.

"Our mom is missing. Scout is hers."

I put the bowl down.

I want to be exact about the next part, because a reporter later wrote that I "leapt into action", and I did not. I stood at that sink with a wet cloth in my hand for about eleven seconds doing the arithmetic on whether I was going to be a person who said something.

Then I said, to Ray's back, "Use the emergency fund."

I have gone over those eleven seconds a great deal since, because a woman from a radio station asked me what went through my mind and I gave her an answer that was not true.

What actually went through my mind was that I had two more Thursdays before my hip appointment and I did not want the last two to be awkward.