At 2:13 in the morning, a bald little boy whispered that he missed his dog—and all I had was a yellow mop bucket.

A real one.

Not polite. Not forced. A cracked little laugh from somewhere deeper than pain.

I made the bucket bark under my breath.

Not loud enough to wake the parents. Just enough for Eli to hear.

He covered his mouth, trying not to giggle.

“Does he know tricks?” he asked.

“Terrible ones,” I said. “But he tries hard.”

I crumpled a clean paper towel into a ball.

Eli tossed it weakly across the blanket.

I pushed the bucket after it and made the worst dog noises a grown man has ever made.

He laughed harder.

So I kept going.

I made Bucket sniff the chair leg. I made Bucket get distracted by an IV pole. I made Bucket “sit” and “roll over,” which was really just me tipping the bucket and nearly losing my job.

At one point Eli laughed so suddenly he had to grab his stomach.

His mother woke up halfway and looked panicked for half a second, like she’d forgotten where she was.

Then she saw me.

Saw the bucket.

Saw her son smiling.

She didn’t say a word. She just pressed her hand over her mouth and started crying silently into her sweater.

His dad woke next.

He looked confused, then embarrassed, like he should stop this nonsense.

But Eli looked at him and said, “Dad, Bucket can play fetch better than Duke.”