Sunlight poured through the windows of Harborlight Animal Rescue on a late-autumn afternoon, warming the clean, orderly space.
I had just finished bathing an elderly abandoned dog and stood up, rubbing my sore lower back.
Rachel Morris, the rescue's director, walked over and handed me a bottle of water. She was in her 40s, capable, energetic, and refreshingly straightforward.
"Ms. Blake, you've been working hard again today. You're busy enough running a whole region, but you still make time to volunteer every month. The fur babies here are starting to think you're their mother."
I opened the bottle and took a drink. "Rachel, stop teasing me. Compared with the 10 years you've devoted to this place, what I do is nothing."
Rachel looked at the dogs racing across the grass, her expression
