Dusty died. Stella and Kent did everything right, and Dusty died.

Stella’s text messages follow The Chicago Manual of Style. Her participles do not dangle. Her language is elegant. Dusty died, and Stella wrote DUSTY DIED CALL US with no period.

I called, but Stella could not speak. Kent said, “Dusty died.” Dusty’s surgery went well. Dusty ate a whole can of Fancy Feast. The vet tech went in with a second can, and Dusty was gone. Dusty did not suffer. Now Kent and Stella were going to be with Dusty at the hospital, even though Dusty was not there.

I offered to meet them, and Kent said, “no.” I offered again, because the first “no” is different from the second. Kent said, “no” again. Kent asked me to tell Harriet for Stella, because Stella could not say “Dusty died” again tonight.

Harriet asked what we could do, and before I could answer “nothing,” she said “nothing.” All I could say was “helpless,” and all Harriet could say was “yes.” I tried to remember what makes people feel better. I remembered that people have jars that keep getting empty, and I remembered that cookies exist.

I did not know if it was possible to get cookies to Stella and Kent’s house before they got home with the unoccupied cat carrier. I searched “emergency cookies,” “immediate cookies,” and “urgent cookies.” I learned there are men in Philadelphia who will hurtle into the suburbs with sixteen cookies the size of a human head. You can choose the flavor.

I dangled paralyzed between “birthday cake,” which felt too cheerful, and “peanut chonk,” which seemed dangerous for people whose throats were crimped with shock. I sent sixteen sugar cookies and wondered what would happen.

Dusty died, and Stella and Kent came home to a leggy man from Philadelphia on their porch. Kent is five feet five inches tall with a head as smooth as a chickpea. Kent prepared to wallop the intruder with an empty carrier. The man from Philadelphia yelled “cookies!” and held out a box that still smelled of butter.

Stella knew I sent the man. I once told Stella that I preferred “action items” to chocolate. Stella almost didn’t text me DUSTY DIED CALL US, because she knew I would do something.

Kent ate three cookies. He couldn’t say whether they were good, but he was glad they came. Stella could not eat. She arranged the other thirteen in a lopsided heart and sent me the picture with no words.

ANGELA TOWNSEND Townsend works for an animal sanctuary. She is a ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee, twenty-one-time Best of the Net nominee, and the winner of West Trade Review's 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Blackbird, The Iowa Review, JMWW, The Offing, SmokeLong Quarterly, trampset, and Witness. She graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and Vassar College.