Jim reached into his flannel shirt and took out the folded paper with the Buncombe County Emergency Services logo, and he kept one hand on Rangers head the whole time he read.
In September 2024, after Hurricane Helene washed out half of Swannanoa, a search-and-rescue dog handler and his German shepherd worked eleven straight days in the mud and found four people alive under the debris.
Then Jim looked at his wife. Courtney, he said, you asked if the dog was allowed in the dining room. That dog found my father. Your father-in-law. He was pinned under his own porch for two days after the water came through, and Wyatt and Ranger are the reason I did not bury him. That is why I drove up alone the week after the storm, and that is why I never told you where I went.
She said her Pomeranian had a better résumé, and mocked the dog that dug her own husbands father out of the mud alive.
The table went silent. Courtney set down her pinot noir.
I am Wyatts mother. He scratched Ranger behind the ears and said happy Thanksgiving, Aunt Courtney, and let it pass, because a man who spends eleven days pulling people out of a mudslide does not need a real estate agents approval. Jim got down on the floor next to that German shepherd and put his arms around his neck, in front of everyone, and nobody laughed at the dog after that.