I lost my dog on a Tuesday. I found her on a Wednesday. The twenty-four hours in between cost me six months of sleep.

Her name is Penny. She’s a rescue. Some kind of terrier mix with ears that don’t match and a limp from before I got her. She’s not fancy. She’s not purebred. She’s mine. I’ve had her for eight years. She sleeps on my bed, under the covers, with her head on my pillow like a person. I talk to her more than I talk to most humans.

I was bringing groceries in from the car. Left the front door open for thirty seconds. That’s all it took. She saw a squirrel or a leaf or nothing at all, and she was gone. I walked up and down my street for an hour calling her name. Then I got in my car and drove around the neighborhood for three more. Then I printed flyers at the office supply store and taped them to every telephone pole within a mile.

By midnight, I was sitting on my porch with a cold cup of coffee and a phone that hadn’t buzzed in hours. I posted on every lost pet page I could find. I called the shelters. I left a message with the vet. Nothing.

I didn’t sleep. I sat on the porch until the sun came up, watching the street, waiting for her to come trotting around the corner like nothing happened. She didn’t.

At six in the morning, I went inside. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t do anything useful. The shelters didn’t open until eight. The flyers were already up. There was nothing left to do but wait. And waiting was killing me.

I opened my laptop. I don’t know why. Maybe because staring at a screen felt better than staring at the empty spot on the couch where Penny usually curled up. I clicked around aimlessly. Emails I didn’t care about. News I didn’t want to read. Then I remembered a site I’d visited months ago, back when things were normal.

I typed in the address. The site was blocked. Some kind of restriction I’d forgotten about. But there was a link at the bottom. A mirror. I clicked it. The Vavada mirror opened without any trouble.

I’d played there before. Small amounts. Nothing serious. I had maybe twenty bucks left in my account from months ago. I sat there looking at the balance. I wasn’t thinking about winning. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I just needed something to do with my hands, something to watch, something to fill the space where my brain was screaming about my dog.

I played for a while. Some game with cats. Ironic. I didn’t care. I just clicked. Spin. Lose. Spin. Lose. Small win. Spin again. It was mindless. It was exactly what I needed.

I was down to about eight dollars when I hit a bonus round. Free spins. I didn’t even notice at first. I was looking at my phone, refreshing the shelter website for the hundredth time. When I looked back at the laptop, the screen was doing something. Symbols matching. Multipliers climbing. The balance was at $180.

I watched it climb to $340. Then $720. Then $1,500. The bonus round kept retriggering. Each time I thought it was over, the screen flashed and added more spins. My hands were on the keyboard. I wasn’t clicking anything. I was just watching.

When it finally stopped, the balance was $3,400.

I stared at it. Then my phone buzzed. A number I didn’t recognize. I answered without looking away from the screen.

“Did you lose a dog?” A woman’s voice. Tired. Kind.

“Yes,” I said. My voice cracked. I hadn’t realized how raw my throat was from calling Penny’s name all night.

“I think I have her. She’s at my house on Maple. I saw your flyer at the gas station.”

I was out the door before I hung up. I don’t remember driving. I don’t remember parking. I just remember knocking on a stranger’s door and seeing Penny come running from the kitchen, her whole body wagging, her stupid mismatched ears flopping. I knelt down and she jumped into my arms and licked my face and made a sound like a squeaky toy that had been waiting eight years to squeak.

The woman said Penny had shown up in her backyard yesterday evening. She’d kept her inside overnight. Fed her chicken. Let her sleep on a blanket.

I cried. Right there on her porch. I’m not ashamed of it. I’d been holding it together for twenty-four hours and the dam broke. The woman didn’t seem to mind. She just smiled and said she was glad Penny had a person who loved her that much.

I drove home with Penny in the passenger seat, her head out the window, tongue flapping in the wind. Like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just aged me five years.

When we got home, I sat on the couch with her on my lap. I opened my laptop. The Vavada mirror was still open. The balance was still there. $3,400.

I withdrew it. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think about what I’d do with it. I just wanted it out of the site and into my account. It felt like closing a door on the worst night of my life.

I used some of the money to buy a new fence. The old one had a gap in the back where Penny must have squeezed through. Now she can run around the yard all she wants and she’s not going anywhere. I donated $500 to the local shelter. I figured I owed them. Not for finding her, but for existing. For being the place people call when they lose something they can’t replace.

I still have the account. I check it sometimes. I don’t play much anymore. Once in a while, on a night when I’m sitting on the couch with Penny curled up next to me, I’ll deposit a small amount. Twenty. Thirty. Nothing I can’t lose. I don’t expect another hit. I already got the only one that mattered.

Penny is sleeping next to me right now. Her head is on my pillow. She’s snoring. It’s a ridiculous sound. Like a tiny chainsaw trying to start. I love it more than almost anything in the world.

I don’t think about the win as gambling. I think about it as the thing that happened while I was waiting for my dog to come home. The Vavada mirror was just a door I walked through while I was waiting for another door to open. And when it did, I walked through that one too.

Sometimes you get lucky twice. Once in a game. Once in real life. The game money bought a fence. The real life gave me back something no amount of money could replace.