The Red Sweater, a short story

A woman on the bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It had a red bow on its head that matched her sweater.

Jenny got on the bus feeling very self-conscious. She had worn black from head-to-toe ever since she left school five years ago. She hadn't been able to get a job with her poor A- level results and  her eating problems had started again.
Jenny's mother had run off to live in Spain with a man she worked with when Jenny was six years old and life had always been so lonely for Jenny and her dad.
Now he'd got himself a girlfriend, Lucia, not much older than Jenny. She was a nurse at the clinic where Jenny had to go for her eating problems and had started coming round to their house with cakes and making hot meals for them all. Lucia had given Jenny a red sweater for her birthday last week and now today she had asked her to take her little dog Trixie for a walk in the park while she was at work.
Lucia was so kind and friendly that Jenny had found herself agreeing and now here she was on the bus and on her way to the park.
As they were going out of the door Lucia had tied a red bow on Trixie's head the same colour as the new sweater. They'd all giggled as they looked at themselves in the hall mirror and Lucia had taken their photo.
As Jenny moved along the bus she noticed that people were smiling at her . An unfamiliar sensation crept over her as she sat down and placed her handbag on her knee. She felt the warmth of Trixie's little body and a glow seemed to settle itself in her heart.
It was happiness.