Part 7 – “When the Helper Needs Help”
The email arrived late on a Wednesday.
Leonard was wiping down the kitchen counter when the alert buzzed on his tablet—a soft ping Jared had set up so Leonard wouldn’t miss messages that mattered. Most of the time, they didn’t. But this one had a subject line that made him pause.
“We read your words. Would you share them further?”
It was from a woman named Meredith Klein, a program director with a national nonprofit called Silver Shield, an advocacy group for elder scam victims.
She had seen one of Leonard’s index cards—posted in a photo online by the librarian Carla—and traced it back to him through Sheila at the senior center.
Would you consider letting us share your story in our online newsletter? Meredith wrote.
No pressure. But your voice—gentle, honest, unashamed—could help so many people speak up.
Leonard read it twice.
Then he shut the tablet.
He didn’t like the idea of being seen by strangers. Not like that. Not as “the man who got taken.” He had made peace with telling his story in folding-chair rooms and handwritten notes tucked into borrowed books. That was different. That was… smaller. Safe.
He didn’t answer the email.
Instead, he brewed some tea and sat on the back porch. Shasta padded over and collapsed at his feet with a grunt. She’d been slower lately—less bounce in her run, more time sleeping between meals. He’d chalked it up to puppy growth spurts, or the Florida heat, but a sliver of worry had begun lodging under his ribs.
That night, she didn’t eat her dinner.
By morning, she wouldn’t even lift her head when he rattled the leash.
“Come on, girl,” he whispered, kneeling beside her. “You’re my little scrapper.”
Her eyes were open, but her body was heavy. Breathing shallow. A low, unhappy whimper slipped from her chest.
Panic, sharp and cold, filled his throat.
He called Jared.
“She’s not moving,” he said.
“Bring her in,” Jared said. “I’ll call the vet. Just go. Now.”
The vet’s office smelled like antiseptic and peanut butter. A tech named Julie lifted Shasta from the passenger seat with a practiced tenderness that broke Leonard’s heart all over again.
“She’s dehydrated,” the vet, Dr. Navarro, said after the exam. “Running a fever. Could be a GI infection. We’ll need to run labs and keep her here for fluids.”
Leonard nodded numbly.
At the desk, they handed him a clipboard. The treatment estimate sat bold and merciless in black ink:
$847.00 – Deposit Due: $500.00
He stared at the number. He had $640 in checking. Another $80 in emergency cash in a tin in the garage.
He handed over his card.
“It may not go through,” he said quietly. “Try it anyway.”
It worked.
Barely.
He walked back out to the car with an empty leash in his hand and an ache behind his eyes he hadn’t felt since Marilyn’s last ambulance ride.
That evening, the house was wrong. Too still. Every clock tick too loud. Every floorboard too hollow. Shasta’s toys sat untouched near the sofa.
Leonard sat at the kitchen table, hands folded over Meredith Klein’s email.
He read it again.
Then opened a blank reply.
Dear Meredith,
I don’t know if I’m the kind of person who should speak for anyone but myself.
But I do know what it means to feel like your mistake defines you.
If my story helps someone feel less alone… then I guess it’s worth being seen.
He paused.
Then added:
I have a dog named Shasta. She came in a cardboard box and taught me how to speak again.
Today, she’s sick. I’m scared.
But even now, I can hear her tag clinking from the vet cage like it’s saying: “Keep going.”
He hit Send.
The next morning, Meredith replied.
She asked if they could record a short phone interview for their podcast. She’d even arrange a modest honorarium.
“If you’re open to it,” she wrote, “we’d also like to cover your vet bill.”
Leonard stared at the screen.
Jared, standing nearby with two mugs of coffee, leaned over.
“She’s offering help, Uncle Lenny.”
“I know.”
“You think you’ll say yes?”
Leonard looked down at the leash still coiled by the door.
“I think Shasta would want me to.”
He smiled faintly.
“She always did like the sound of her own story.”