A Simple Case of Angels Read Online Free PDF

is she good at?”
    â€œBesides being bad? Kissing. And she can do tricks.”
    â€œTricks?” Ignacio said. “People take their pets around to hospitals and nursing homes and places like that. You could do that. She could show off her tricks.”
    â€œI’d be afraid to take her to a hospital.”
    â€œYou could try. Do you want to? I’ll ask Father Mark if he knows a place. Come back next week, okay?”
    Nicola tried not to sound discouraged, but a week was a long time. Long enough for a little dog to do a lot more damage.
    Ignacio unzipped his coat and lifted June Bug out. Nicola decided to carry her. Taking her from the warm place next to Ignacio’s heart and setting her down in the cold snow seemed cruel.
    â€œSee you soon,” Ignacio said before he went back up the church steps to finish shoveling. “We’ll save June Bug.”
    â€œI hope so.”
    Nicola trudged off with her little dog under her arm, heading in the general direction of home, preoccupied with worry and paying no attention to which street she took. Except for the squeak of her boots in the cold, the whole white world was silent.
    June Bug squirmed to be put down.
    â€œThere you go,” Nicola said.
    June Bug started pulling. She pulled and sniffed and made those strange ork ork ork sounds that used to frighten Nicola until the vet explained that June Bug wasn’t having an asthma attack, but reverse sneezing.
    The snow was getting up her nose, but still she sniffed and sneezed and pulled Nicola on, excited about whatever scent she’d picked up.
    Until, abruptly, she stopped.
    In the snow bank, some child had swished out an angel — a crisp, perfectly outlined impression with a skirt and wings. June Bug sniffed at it and her stubby tail wagged.
    Beyond the snow angel was a low concrete building with high windows and a wooden fence. It could have been an office or a small factory, except for the sign:
    SHADY OAKS RETIREMENT HOME
    Nicola gave herself a little shake. June Bug did, too, jangling the tags on her collar. She looked at Nicola and tilted her head.
    Sometimes it seemed to Nicola that she and June Bug communicated perfectly. Like now. June Bug seemed to have pulled her to the very place they ­needed.
    Now she seemed to be saying, “Let’s go in.”
    â€œOkay,” Nicola said.
    No one at the Shady Oaks Retirement Home had recently shoveled. Nicola carried June Bug again, stepping in the old footprints half filled with fresh snow. These led up a wheelchair ramp to the front door, which was glass. In the vestibule, a few coats hung on hooks. An inner glass door faced a desk.
    Nicola tried the outer door, but it was locked. She pressed the intercom button — twice, then three times — before an impatient voice answered, “Can I help you?”
    â€œI’m here to talk to someone about visiting. With my dog.”
    Through the glass doors, Nicola could see a plump woman with dyed blonde hair. Not young, but not old, either. A nurse, Nicola guessed from her pajama-like uniform. She was standing behind the desk, which must have been a nursing station, holding the phone and looking through the glass doors right at June Bug.
    The second the nurse laid eyes on the little dog, she smiled, just like Ignacio had said.
    The front door buzzed and unlocked with a click.
    Nicola put June Bug down in the vestibule and stamped the snow off her boots. June Bug sniffed the doormat madly. To her, a doormat was a list of all the people who had ever been to a place. June Bug seemed very interested in who came and went from Shady Oaks.
    The nurse met them at the inner door, which was also locked. When she opened it, an odor washed over Nicola, a combination of disinfectant and pee tinged with something sweet.
    â€œAnd who have we here?” the nurse cooed to June Bug, who wagged, then almost burst through the nurse’s legs and into the building that