Spring didn’t arrive all at once. It came in fragments—the first morning the frost didn’t bite, the first patch of stubborn green pushing through thawing mud, the first time Willow didn’t flinch at the slam of a distant car door.
Recovery isn’t a straight line. Nobody tells you that when you’re sitting in a sterile clinic at three in the morning, watching a life hang by a thread. They talk about survival like it’s a finish line. It’s not. It’s a beginning—and beginnings can be messy.
Willow had good days. Days where her tail wagged so hard it thumped against the walls like a metronome. Days where she followed me from room to room, her mismatched gait turning into something almost playful. On those days, you’d never guess she had ever been that frozen, broken thing in a cage.
And then there were the other days.
