It Happened: After the Worst Thing Happens by Audrey Vernick

 It is cruel. I wake up.

Tears start before I even form and idea about how I can survive in this life in which not only did my sweet dog die, but it was entirely my fault. 

 His food and water bowls are gone. The leash is no longer hanging on a hook by the mudroom door. The small basket of balls and toys he liked are gone. All the signs of his life are gone.

 Never happened.

Leaving the double-chocolate cupcakes she'd made from her best friend's recipe to cool in the pantry, Army dashes out of the house for dinner at JennaLouise's house, leaving her beloved little white dog Maybe eating his kibble, but when she returns, her dog is already near death. She forgot chocolate is poison to dogs, and little Maybe had eaten six or seven of them. 

 Army is devastated with guilt and misses Maybe terribly. Her friend Jenna and brother Navy try to console her as best the can, and her mom is sympathetic, but already absorbed in the approaching tropical storm. Army's parents run a company which specializes in recovery and restoration of property after storms, fires, and floods. A tropical storm is worsening rapidly and her parents are busy preparing for their cleanup work in its aftermath.

No one has time to share her grief. Walking alone through her neighborhood, Army notices a small girl, about five years old, sitting on the second floor roof of the house into which new neighbors have just moved. She feels compelled to tell the new neighbors about the child, and discovers an distraught mother  alone with newborn twins. Army offers to climb out the window and sit with Madison until her mother can get the twins settled. She sits silently with her until the little girl decides to climb back inside. She learns then that Madison is mute and autistic and prone to climbing anything--utility towers and tall trees.

 And then, when Army is forced to wait through a Cub Scout meeting with her little brother Navy, their program is about service dogs, and suddenly Army decides that she must find a way to get a service dog for Madison to help keep her safe. Surprisingly, Navy gives her a box he's rescued from the trash, with all of Maybe's toys, his leash, and bowls. And when her mother finds the box in her closet, she doesn't understand.

"You have to forgive yourself, honey," her mom says.

"I don't know how." I say. "Because I can't do your Never Happened thing--act like there never was a Maybe."

Mom takes her time. "I work with people going through awful things, some because of human error. But those were just things. You have your memories and I knew it would be easier to get over it without all the reminders around."

"For you," I say. "That's what's easier for you. For me, it helps to have the actual thing that's part of the memory.

The things have meaning to me."

And her mother gets it that things can help in handling grief, and with the help of her best friend and the annoying Elsie Jennings, who  insists on befriending her, Army sets out to find a way to get a service dog for Madison and finds her own self-forgiveness in the aftermath of the storm, in Audrey Vernick's newest middle grade novel, After the Worst Thing Happens (Mary Ferguson Books, 2020).

Author Audrey Verdick is capable of penning hilarious picture books for young primary students (cf. her First Grade Dropout) (see review here), but in this realistic first-person coming-of-age story, the real focus is on Army's relationship with her stoic mother and father whose business is to remove all evidence of unfortunate events, an understanding of her mom who learned to hide grief after her father's early death, and a consciousness that she must handle loss and guilt in her own way. Kirkus Reviews says, "This exploration of family dynamics is where this novel shines."