You Had to Be There

Apart from its picture, I purchased the puppy sight unseen. I told this to my mother on the phone this morning, talking while dressing as she pondered the picture I'd texted her, the one I saw before I clicked PURCHASE, the one she is commenting on. "There's some Crested there," she keeps saying. And for my part, "We'll see when she gets here." Because that's all we know of her: the same dog to both of us until she arrives, when she's more mine than hers. An audience of one, a loneliness of millions.