I drove across town to Caprock, my heart pounding with a fear I could not name, and when I walked in, the girl at the desk lit up and said, oh, you must be here for Daisy, and she led me to the back, and there sat a little terrier on a young volunteers lap, and beside her, a small bald girl in a hospital gown, giggling.
I had to hold the door frame to stay standing.
That little girl of his, the one who held Daisy on the scale every month, was not a secret granddaughter, she was a child from the childrens hospital across the street, and my Frank had been bringing a therapy dog to sick children for years.
The staff told me everything, and the whole mystery turned from dread to something that filled my eyes. Frank, it turned out, had trained Daisy as a therapy dog. Daisy was not even really his, she was a clinic dog, but Frank had sponsored her, paid her vet bills, and every first Saturday, he brought her, freshly groomed and checked over, to visit the children in the cancer ward.
The little girl who helped weigh Daisy was one of the patients, a child named Lily who had been fighting leukemia for two years. Frank had grown close to her, the staff said. He came every month, and Lily was always his favorite helper, and he treated her like the granddaughter he, we, never had.
My allergic husband, who sneezed his head off at my sisters cat, had been dosing himself with allergy medicine every first Saturday for years, just so he could bring a little dog to comfort dying children, and love one brave little girl in particular.
The staff handed me a card Lily had made for Frank, not knowing he had passed. It said, in a childs crayon: To my friend Frank, thank you for Daisy, you make the hospital not scary. I love you.
I wept in that waiting room. My husband of forty-three years, who I thought I knew all the way through, had a whole secret life of pure kindness, comforting sick children with a therapy dog, allergies be hanged.
I could not tell Lily that Frank was gone, not right then. Instead I sat down beside her, and I helped her weigh Daisy, the way Frank always had, and I told her I was Franks wife, and that I would keep bringing Daisy now.
And I have. Every first Saturday, I bring Daisy to the childrens ward, and I take my allergy medicine just like Frank did, and Lily, who is in remission now, thank God, helps me weigh her, and calls me Grandma Frank, and it is the best day of my month.
My daughter did not know why I really drove across town. Now she knows her daddy was a secret angel to sick children. That little girl of his was every child in that ward, and Lily most of all. I lost my Frank, but I found the most beautiful thing he ever did, and I get to keep doing it. He would be so proud. I am.