The pier was a quarter mile south, and although Tweed was on the far side, where the waves were better, I could see his wheelchair. The fronts and backs of fishermen, standing, and Tweed, seated, with a mop of brown hair. He’d broken his leg surfing eight weeks ago. There’d been a strong northwest swell, and a wave threw Tweed into a pier piling.

We’d been hoping for good news at yesterday’s doctor’s appointment, but the break hadn’t healed as much as the doctor wanted. The big cast would stay another three weeks. His leg would heal, though—he wasn’t going to be a lifelong cripple—but try telling that to Tweed.

Tweed and I rented a granny flat in back of Bryce and Katy’s house. He and I had always gone to the beach’s south end because of the waves. Once we started bringing the kids, we spread our towels on the pier’s other side, in front of the lifeguard tower. We were early-thirties and had talked about having kids since our late-twenties. For one reason or another, things were never right. Now with his leg, he was too depressed to think about bringing a child into this world he thought was so unfair.

At the sidewalk, the kids and I tossed down our flip-flops and stepped in. You could walk back by the water on the hard-pack, but I didn’t want Bryce making friends with any more dead sea creatures.

The sidewalk was always filled with skateboarders, joggers, and walkers who were at least two abreast and not budging. Bryce had Lucy, and Katy and I followed. I’d recently let him start an obedience class with Lucy. She’d never had any formal training, at least not anything I knew about. I’d gotten her from a shelter. She’d come in as a stray, and her scruff had grown around her too-tight collar. The shelter had to cut it off, and the skin around her neck still had a funny fold in it.

Katy had the Igloo in one hand and limped, like when Tweed traveled to and from the bathroom. I knew he’d get that walking cast soon.

Ahead, Lucy had too much leash and was cutting people off. “Pull her back,” I told Bryce, and he did a little.

“Will Lucy be a show dog?” Katy asked.

I said maybe, if Bryce kept working with her. “More!” I called.

“Will they win a ribbon?”

Bryce turned and, backpedaling, said, “I just want Lucy to take a treat without biting my hand.” His chest was pink but it would turn red tonight. A mother would’ve made sure he’d put on sun block before leaving the house.

Lucy wandered into the ice plant that separated the walkway from backyards and I yelled, “Bring her back!”

Lucy waded belly-deep into the ice plant. Bryce pulled the leash, but she was fifty-two pounds and not moving. Her head was buried in the succulent, and I could hear her sniffing.

“Give me the leash,” I said, but he let go before I had a good grip. Lucy bounded further in, following something.

I stepped in and grabbed her hind leg. She made horse-bucking kicks but I rode them out and walked my hands up her body. Before I could grab her collar, her head popped up with a squirrel.

Katy screamed. I let go of Lucy. The squirrel was in her mouth lengthwise, the back legs flung out one side and the head the other. It didn’t move. Lucy’s white beard was red, and her eyes were those same stones when she’d been staring down the lobster.

I wanted to scream like Katy did, but instead said softly, “Drop it.”

Lucy didn’t know the command, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“Drop it.”

I was afraid she’d start working the squirrel through her teeth, so I kept saying, “Drop it. Lucy, drop it.”

I pointed to the ground, suggesting a good place leave her fresh kill. She just stared at me.

“Please, Lucy. Drop it.”

She growled and I jumped back onto the sidewalk. Bryce made two high-steps into the ice plant but I yelled, “No!”

An old man in baggies and boat shoes came up and said, “Snack time?” He waded into the ice plant and picked up Lucy’s leash.

“I have a German Shepherd,” he said. “She once killed three raccoons over on the flood channel. I called it her hat trick. The raccoons put up a fight, and really gnarled her neck. But every time she sees a raccoon, she still wants it.”

He moved towards Lucy and she bolted up, rocking back and forth on her front paws. He took two more steps, reeling in the leash hand-over-hand.

He grasped her head and shook it, not too roughly, until the squirrel dropped. He let go and Lucy bounded back to me. Blood was smeared down her chest and one leg. I picked up the leash and she started pacing. Katy jumped back. Lucy knew how to sit, lie down, and bark at parking enforcement. But I’d never taught her to kill.

The man fished a plastic grocery bag out of the trash and dropped the squirrel into it. He tied it shut and gave it a couple jaunty round-the-world whirls, the squirrel’s body smashed against one side. Then he dropped the bag into the garbage can with a dead thump, and two pigeons scattered.

Usually after the beach, Tweed would strip to his board shorts and rinse off in the front yard with Lucy. They’d both drink from the spout and then air-dry by chasing each other. This time, Lucy would need a trip to the dog wash. It’d only take a few minutes, and then we’d pick up Tweed and get the kids ice cream.

We headed up Brighton and passed a homeless man sitting against a drug store. He pointed at Katy’s Igloo and asked, “Anything for me?”

Tweed and I had always given our leftovers to street people. We even made a game of it, seeing whose they liked more. Tweed usually won, because he ordered meat—beef, carnitas, fried chicken tenders—and I got tofu or chicken.

But things were tight now with just my income. After yesterday’s doctor appointment, Tweed and I got a pizza for lunch but only ate half. We put the pizza box on his lap and wheeled it home.

On the way, a homeless teenage boy asked, “Think you could spare the pie?”

Tweed and I pretended not to hear; the pizza was another meal each.

But with this man outside the drug store, I knew Katy and Bryce’s parents wouldn’t mind giving away what we hadn’t eaten. So I nodded to Katy and she flipped back the Igloo’s jaw. She pulled out a peanut butter and jelly, potato chips, Pop Tarts, and Babybels. She poured it all in the man’s lap, and he went for a cheese first, unwinding the paper tab and pulling back the wax halves. He popped the cheese in his mouth and put one of the wax halves on his nose, lengthwise.

We crossed Cape May and when we turned onto Saratoga, you could see the line outside the dog wash.

“Here,” I said, and gave the kids money for ice cream.

I got in line with Lucy behind a golden retriever, its long belly hair hanging in wet, sandy clumps. The owner was wearing a plaid golf cap and holding a grayed tennis ball. The golden kept pivoting to keep that ball directly in front of him.

The line moved forward and an older woman with a pug waddled out the door. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and two inches of silver bracelets that jingled like dog tags. Her shirt was wet on the torso.

“What happened?” She asked me.

“What?”

She pointed at Lucy’s black, white, and red chest. “That.” People in line turned around.

I said, “She found a squirrel she didn’t like.”

“You should keep a better hold on her.” Her pug had wandered over to a newspaper machine and was peeing. There was a spider web of snot on its smashed face.

I looked down sweetly at Lucy. “She once killed three raccoons on the flood channel. I called it her hat trick. The raccoons put up a fight; that’s why her neck looks funny. But she still wants every raccoon she sees.”

The man with the golden nodded, believing it all. The woman dragged her pug away. Most everyone who lived around here was cool; it was why Tweed and I rented our moldy flat rather than something nicer inland. This pug woman must have been from Rancho Santa Fe.

When Lucy and I reached the front of the line, the attendant handed me an apron and pointed to a tub. There were eight of them, each separated with glass-block partitions. It felt like a diner.

Lucy scrambled up the tub’s stairs and stood inside it, expectant. I wondered if she’d been here with her last owner. I slipped the apron over my head, thinking I could’ve avoided all this if I’d insisted on leaving Lucy at the pier with Tweed that morning. I had asked, but he said he couldn’t deny her all those waves.

“Somebody in this family should be catching them.”

Him calling us a “family” had made me smile, and I took our surrogate kids to the beach. Tweed might not think so, but he’d be on the beach again soon.

The water gun was like a massage, and Lucy kept trying to nestle into it. The shampoo was in a narrow-tipped bottle, like the kind used to apply ear medication, and was watered down and blue. It smelled like blueberries and lathered well. I started at Lucy’s hips and worked down each leg. I’d thought maybe she’d put up a fight, but she was panting with happiness.

I put more shampoo on her chest and massaged it in. She yawned. The blood was a streak, a solid going soft from the water. I broke it up and scrubbed it away. The water dripped light pink. When I washed her front paws, blood-dirt clumps dropped off.

I pushed the water gun into her back and she moaned a little. She was loving it, and I rinsed her longer than necessary. I hoped she wouldn’t start killing things weekly to get this reward.

Since Tweed’s accident, I’d been giving him a bath every day. He didn’t work up much of a stink in his wheelchair, and we could have stretched it out to every second or third day. But we didn’t. I’d take off his clothes and help him into a plastic chair in the tub. His cast always rested on the tub’s edge, covered with a trash bag. He liked to make nurse jokes, and I’d call him Hemingway. I’d fill a bucket with water and pump liquid soap onto a towel. I’d massage his body longer than necessary.

I wondered what he was doing right now. Besides wondering where the hell the kids and I were. We’d gotten him to the pier in time to catch the late-morning low tide. He would’ve seen Lance and Stop Short on some killer waves before everything crapped out. Maybe Tweed was talking to other people, making an effort despite the rough time he was having with his leg. What he really wanted to do was get back to fixing roofs—which I didn’t think was too likely with the limp he’d have—and catching waves in the morning. He hated having to depend on me. On the pier now, I thought he was probably bored as hell and wanting out of that wheelchair. Or at least a beer. I hoped he wasn’t fishing.

Bryce and Katy wandered into the dog wash with Styrofoam bowls of ice cream, Katy smiling behind those big pink sunglasses. Lucy shook and the kids covered their ice cream. Bryce’s chest looked like the back of that lobster. If Tweed and I ever had kids, I would remember their sun block.

Lucy didn’t like the hairdryer, which was loud and blew cold air. So I let her out of the tub and she shook while I untied the apron.

“Can I give her my ice cream?” Katy asked.

“Sure.”

Katy set her bowl on the floor and Lucy pushed-licked it up against the wall. When it was empty, I leashed Lucy up and she shook again. I could have asked the attendant for a towel. But Tweed was getting good with his wheelchair, and could chase her dry.