I first came across him on a damp October road.
A tiny, shivering puppy was curled up by the roadside, his eyes fixed on the passing cars as if he were waiting for someone in particular. I was driving out to my country cottage to collect a few potatoes, slowed for a moment, thinking Id just have a look. The little thing lifted his head, and that was the end of my plans. The potatoes stayed in the ground for another week.
My neighbour, MrsMargaret Blythe, christened him Mars when she spotted the reddish, floppyeared creature skulking down my hallway.
Redhaired, nosy, a bit clumsy, she said, Marsfits him perfectly.
I laughed then.
Mars grew fast. By spring he was taking up the whole left side of the sofa, and he seemed to think hed earned the right to do so. At first I scolded him, then I stopped. Sleeping alone in the flat felt worse than sharing the bed with a dog who would snore and occasionally twitch a paw in his sleep.
Our friendship didnt happen overnight; it developed slowly, like people who have nowhere in particular to rush. Morning walks, dinner at seven, the TV on in the evenings. Sometimes Id talk aloud to Mars. Hed sit beside me, listening with a solemn stare, only yawning now and then, baring his teeth.
Youre right, Id say. Thats enough. And Id switch the television off.
***
The accident came in April, on our way back from an evening stroll.
My memory of the exact details is hazy. The road was slick, my car skidded onto the pavement at a corner, Mars was on his leash, and the leash snapped. I was thrown against the curb, hit my side, and lay there for a few seconds, hearing only my own breathing and a distant shout.
When I got up, Mars was gone.
The broken leash lay on the asphalt, the plastic clasp split in two.
I searched until midnight, combing three neighbourhood blocks, calling his name, asking passersby. They shook their heads. One person mentioned seeing a ginger dog dash toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but no one had seen him since.
Back home I sat in the kitchen, staring at an empty food bowl.
Later I got up, typed up a notice, printed twenty copies, and stuck them on every lamppost in the district the next morning. I also rang three local veterinary practices and a rescue shelter on Willow Street.
If a ginger pup, mixedbreed, turns up, please call me. Heres my number, I told the clerk.
A week slipped by.
Then a month.
The flyers faded under Mays rain, so I reposted them. I did it again in June. The vets stayed silent. The Willow Street shelter called twice, both times by mistake, and the dog they described wasnt ours.
In July MrsBlythe hesitantly said from the doorway,
Victor, maybe you should get another one. There are plenty at the shelter.
No, I answered.
She didnt bring it up again.
The flat without Mars felt different. Not empty, just altered. The fridge hummed, the neighbours upstairs began their tentoeleven chatter as usual, but something had shifted.
I lifted an old rubber ball from the floorthe one Mars used to chase down the hallwayput it on a shelf, then shoved it into a drawer, only to pull it out again later and leave it on the shelf.
Each morning my hand reached for the leash by the door out of habit. It hung there, unused. There was nowhere else to go.
I started walking the same route at the same time, just without him. I couldnt explain why; I just kept moving.
In August my daughter called from York.
Dad, come stay with us for a while. You could rest.
I cant, I said.
Why?
I paused. Maybe hell come back.
She was quiet, then said alright in that tone people use when they have something else to say but hold back.
Mars turned up in October.
I heard scratching at the front door around eight in the evening. At first I thought it was the wind or a draft from the stairwell, but the sound repeated, deliberate, with pauses, as if someone knew the door would open eventually.
I opened it.
There, on the mat, sat Mars.
Hed aged. His coat was trimmed in a few spots where old wounds had been, his left side slightly scarred, and around his neck hung a foreign leather collar, brown with a brass buckle and a tiny tag that read Buddy.
I stood in the doorway, staring at him. He stared back, right ear drooping, a patch of orange on his forehead shaped like a crooked star, the same amber eyes framed by dark lashes.
Where have you been? I asked.
He rose, trotted across the threshold, and navigated the hall as if hed memorised every turn. He headed straight for his bowlstill empty, just as always.
I shut the door, shuffled to the kitchen, my hands trembling as I opened the fridge.
Alright, I muttered. Alright.
The next morning I drove to the vet. They examined Mars, gave him the necessary shots, scanned his microchip. I asked about the collar; the vet read the tag aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone mustve given him a new one, I replied.
Did he live with someone?
For about six months, somewhere. I dont know where.
She looked at me, then at Mars, then back at me.
It happens, she said. Dogs sometimes wander off and later turn up, especially the clever ones.
I said nothing, watching Mars sit on the stainlesssteel table, unmoved by the examination.
On the back of the tag was a phone number. I dialled it from the car while Mars rested on the back seat, watching the road.
After three rings, a voice answered.
Hello?
Good afternoon, I said. You had a dogredhaired. He was called Buddy?
A pause.
Yes, a middleaged woman replied. He left us in September. Weve been looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Silence again. Then she said,
He was with us for a while. We fed him, tended his wounds.
Thank you, I said.
Hes a good dog.
Indeed.
A beat.
Do you live far from here? On Birch Street?
Not exactlyanother part of town.
Oh dear, she sighed. He turned up in April, just lay by our fence and never left.
I watched the grey, leafless courtyard outside the windshield, the bare poplars swaying.
The call ended on its own. I put the phone away. Mars, now lying on the back seat, pressed his head against his folded paws and snored softly.
Back home I took the foreign collar off him, placed it on the table, and stared at it for a long whilebrown leather, brass tag reading Buddy. Good quality, not cheap.
Hed spent half a year with someone else, yet hed found his way back.
I thought of the woman on Birch Streethow she must have fed him daily, petted him, grown attached, then in September she woke up and he was gone, still searching, perhaps putting up notices.
I called her again.
Its me again, I said when she answered. If youd like to visit him, Im happy to arrange it.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She came on a Saturday. Galina Parker, sixtyfour, in a grey coat and a basket with apple jam and a sack of dog foodthe very stuff Mars had gotten used to over those six months.
Mars saw her from the hallway and didnt dash away. He padded over, nudged her hand with his nose, and wagged his tail enthusiastically.
They shared tea. Galina told how shed found him by the fence in April, taken him to the vet, how frightened he was at first, then settled in. I recounted the crash, the broken leash, the flyers.
Mars lay between us, dozing. Occasionally he lifted his head, looked at one of us, then the other.
He chose both of us, Galina said.
I looked at the dog, then at Galina.
Seems that way.
I slipped the foreign collar into a drawer instead of discarding it.
Mars resumed occupying the left half of the sofa and still chased the ball down the hallway at one in the morning. The flyers on the lampposts soaked in November rain and peeled off by themselves.
Galina visited on Saturdays, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice on blackcurrantsshe kept a small garden on Birch Street, and I was learning a thing or two about gardening myself. We talked while Mars napped between us.
One evening I fetched the leather collar with the Buddy tag from the drawer, examined it under the lamp. It gleamed.
In the hallway hung two leashes. One, red and worn, the other, blue and new, the one Galina had placed there on a recent Saturday without asking.
The life wed built with Mars felt fuller now, stitched together by the stray threads of two strangers who had each, in their own way, cared for a lost dog.
