On September 1, 2026, Melissa Chertoff III comes home after a difficult day at school and finds a dachshund lying on its side in the backyard of her family’s home. Melissa steps through the sliding glass door and walks toward the dog. She doesn’t recognize it. The dachshund’s sleek brown body rests on the yard’s browning grass. Its head is propped on the edge of the concrete deck, as though it had decided to use the hard decking as a pillow.

            Stupid, stupid dog.

            The dachshund is unmarked, unbloodied, apparently uninjured. No tags. It looks healthy, except for the one big thing. The imprint of death is unmistakable.

            No is or will be for you, dog. Just was.

            Melissa crouches and draws her fingertips along the ridge of the dog’s skull, as though trying to comfort the comfortless. She rises quickly, embarrassed. She hopes no one saw her petting a dead dog.

            Kind of a creepy thing to do.

            Melissa is the first girl in her high school to add Roman numerals to her name. The practice will become fashionable after Melissa graduates, but for a time it is unique to her.

            Melissa’s mother goes by “Deuce.” Melissa never thinks while her mother is alive to ask why. She wonders now, but her father won’t say and no one else seems to know.

            Deuce passes away seven weeks to the day before Melissa finds the dachshund in the backyard. Deuce’s death comes as a shock to everyone in the family except Deuce, who is in a particularly advantageous position to anticipate the event.

            After a useless surgery, hospital staff invite the family into a special room to say a final good-bye. Melissa’s father and weeping sisters go into the room, but Melissa refuses. She wants to remember her mother alive and full of eccentric misjudgments, not inert. Melissa’s sisters are angry with Melissa for not going in with them to look at the body and kiss it on the cheek and whatever.

            Sorry, Mom. For the first time ever, you’re boring.

            Melissa is unsure what to do with the dachshund. She calls Animal Control and asks if they will remove it.

            “What kind of animal is it?”

            “A dog. A dachshund.”

            “Then it’s a pet.”

            “Says who?”

            “You ever hear of a wild dachshund?”

            Asshole.

Animal Control’s policy is that it does not remove the bodies of deceased pets.

            Melissa gets a garbage bag and finds the big yellow gloves her mother wore to clean the bathrooms. Bagging the dachshund is a struggle. But eventually Melissa slips the dog’s head into the garbage bag and then, sitting on the ground with one foot propped against the dog’s butt, draws the bag over the rest of the body.

            Like putting on an eleven-gallon sock. No big deal.

            Melissa carries the bag to the dumpster in front of the next-door neighbor’s house. She opens the lid, and pauses.

            I’m sorry you died. I hope it didn’t hurt. I wish I’d known you.

            Melissa drops the bagged dachshund into the dumpster and closes the lid.

            She goes back to her house, returns the big yellow gloves to the pail where she got them, goes to her bedroom, shuts the door, and sits on the floor with her back against the bed. The tears come as a surprise.