"Good news," Isaiah said, and Claire's whole body braced for cereal 2.0. "Likely dietary indiscretion. We'll run a quick panel to be safe because he's little and you're right to be spooked. If bloodwork's clean and he keeps water down, you go home with monitoring instructions and a lecture about the park's ground cuisine."
"I accept the lecture in advance."
While they waited on labs, Claire sat in the exam room and watched Isaiah type. The silence had weight. Not romantic weight—work weight. He looked tired in the deep way. She wanted to ask if he'd eaten. She did not. She asked about the shepherd from a news brief she'd seen the clinic post about GDV awareness instead, keeping it general. Isaiah answered in generalities, then glanced at her.
"You're doing the night-shift feature," he said. "Campus magazine."
Claire blinked. "How—?"
"Amina's friend works in facilities. Small city. Your name came up as the writer asking good questions." He half-smiled. "For what it's worth, the night people can tell when someone wants a story and when someone wants a person. Sounds like you're doing the first without hunting the second."
"I'm trying." Claire looked at Nash. "This visit isn't a loophole."
"I know." Isaiah's eyes held hers. "If it were, I'd transfer the case to Dr. Patel mid-exam and you'd hate me correctly."
Labs came back fine. Isaiah gave the lecture about park food with theatrical severity that made Claire laugh against her will. At discharge, he paused with the paperwork.
"Maple Street has you for the final vaccine next Thursday," he said. Not a question. He had looked. "After that, if you send records request to close any Harbor continuity, my board stops humming your name."
Claire's throat tightened around something like hope and something like fear. "And then the rain check stops being a hypothetical."
"Then it becomes a choice," Isaiah said. "Not an inevitability. Choices are kinder."
He handed her the papers. Their fingers did not linger. Nash yawned as if bored by human ethics.
Outside under the awning, Claire texted Priya: Bagel. Fine. He was on. We were adults. I want to scream into a decorative pillow.
Priya: Decorate your scream. Also proud. Also buy a baby gate so he stops dining in parks.
The Tuesday before Nash's final vaccine, Claire's mother called while Claire was attempting to teach leave it with a piece of string cheese as the moral universe.
"You sound busy," her mother said, which meant she had already decided Claire was either thriving or drowning and wanted the category labeled.
"Puppy class homework," Claire said. Nash stared at the cheese with the eyes of a creature who had never known suffering. "Leave it. Leave—Nash, that's the opposite of leave it."
"I still think a dog is a lot for an apartment."