"The Finding" by Valerie Trueblood (2013, from Search Party: Stories of Rescue)

Search Party:  Stories of Rescue by Valerie Trueblood is receiving a lot of positive notices.   Her previous short story collection, Mary or Burn, was short listed for The Frank O'Connor Prize.  

"The Finding" is a very emotionally intelligent deeply moving story.  A woman, a nurse, is at the office of an optomologist awaiting an examination.  The doctor comes out and tells her his nurse just quit.  He seems at a loss.   He tells her he will have to wait until his daughter arrives as he needs a woman in the office during examinations of females.   The woman worked near the doctor in a hospital.  He is a decent man, frazzled. He tells her his wife has left him and he is living in a hotel.  Her eyes are dilated and the doctor offers to drive her home, she took the bus there.  He tells her that once he drops her off he is going to go to his house as his wife, who hates dogs, has kept his beloved old dog just for spite.  The woman says she wants to stay with him until he get the dog, to support him.  The doctor nearly breaks down when he sees his poor old dog's neglected condition.  The woman feels deep sympathy for the man.  She senses the humanity in him, where he had at once just seemed remote.  

I don't want to disclose more of the plot of this story other than to say it ends with the rescue of more than just the dog.  Pet lovers will totally get this story.  

If you download a sample of the book, you can read the story.

Valerie Trueblood grew up in rural Virginia, USA, studied with John Hawkes and John Berryman, worked as a caseworker in Chicago and as a reference librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. In 2006, Trueblood’s first novel, Seven Loves, came out from Little Brown and was a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers”. She lives in Seattle and the Methow Valley.

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