Raymond Goynes and Mary Kilty spent a few last moments with Ms. Kilty’s ailing terrier, Sonja, at Ms. Kilty’s apartment. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Raymond Goynes went uptown to see Sonja one last time on March 8, a sunny Tuesday morning.
He let himself into her owner’s penthouse duplex in Hell’s Kitchen. Sonja, an 11-year-old wheaten terrier, was sprawled on the wool kilim rug in the living room. Her head rested on a towel.
“Look who it is, look who it is!” Sonja’s owner, Mary Kilty, cried.
“Miss Sonja!” Mr. Goynes called out.
For the first time in an hour or so, the little tan dog raised her head.
In 2005, when Mr. Goynes first met Sonja, he was living in a refrigerator box in the entranceway of a building down the block, in the West 50s.
He’d been homeless since the 1970s, spent years freebasing cocaine. But he had gotten clean in 2000, and he was scraping along doing odd jobs on the block.
“After I got Sonja, he saw various people walking her when I was at work,” said Ms. Kilty, who was studying to be an epidemiologist. “He said to me, ‘I can walk your dog.’ He said this to me several times and eventually I thought why not give it a try, because he clearly needed some income and support.”
Sonja and Mr. Goynes hit it off splendidly. On Saturday mornings, he would take her on two-hour walks up to Central Park and around the reservoir. “It was like a love festival,” said Ms. Kilty.