And he realized as he turned to the table that what he’d felt when he held that puppy, what it had loosened within him, was the feeling he had always had when they first got the new baby home from the hospital. Each time he had held this warm, boneless, breathing miracle under his chin, careful not to scratch the fragile pink skull skin with the bristles of his beard, and felt as though the heart within it and his own had melded into one and that they were beating together.
