The Days You Waited for Me — A TOCA Ebook

A warm, quiet novella about a daughter coming home to help her mother move, the old dog they both love, and learning to make room for one another.

Elise arrives with a suitcase, a roll of packing tape and fourteen days in which to be helpful. Her mother, Nora, is leaving the family house for a ground-floor flat near the shops: her own decision, on her own terms. Moss, thirteen and white around the muzzle, now prefers the short route past the newsagent to the river walks Elise remembers. Between labelled boxes, a chair that nearly goes to charity and a pottery class nobody mentioned, Elise begins to discover the life her mother and her dog have been living while she was away.

What you get

• The ebook (EPUB) — reflowable, with a linked contents page; set the text size you like in any EPUB reader.
• A print-friendly PDF — 72 pages, 6 × 9 in, for reading on any screen or on paper.

Inside

• Sixteen chapters in four parts — What She Came to Do, What Would Not Fit, Making Room, The Door Ahead. About 13,000 words: an evening or two of reading.
• Four reflection pauses — short, optional pages between the parts. Read straight through if you prefer.
• To finish — a note after the story and twelve reading-group questions.

Good to know

Moss is alive at the end. The story includes a parents' separation and worries about ageing, told gently and without distressing scenes. It is set in England and written in British English.

What it isn't

An original short work of fiction: not a memoir, a guide to moving house, or veterinary advice. For changes in an older animal's comfort, mobility or behavior, talk to your veterinarian. The text and cover were created with AI tools and edited by TOCA.

Practical details

• Two files (EPUB about 2.9 MB, PDF about 4.1 MB), delivered by email right after checkout
• The EPUB opens in Apple Books, Google Play Books, Kobo and most reading apps; you can also send it to a Kindle with Amazon's Send to Kindle
• English only. Digital files only; no physical product is shipped.
• For personal use. Please don't share, resell or redistribute the files.

Also from TOCA: A Place Beside You, a story about self-worth, belonging and the life we share with animals.

Better rest for happier pets.