Victor found the little dog on the road in October.
The pup was huddled on the shoulder of a damp country lane, shivering and tiny, watching the passing cars as if waiting for a particular person. Victor was on his way to his weekend allotment for potatoes, eased his tractor to a halt, and thought the animal would simply look up and trot away. Instead, the dog lifted its head, and that moment changed everything. The potatoes stayed in the soil for another week.
He named him Mars. The name came from his neighbour, Mrs. Eleanor Clarke, who spied the reddish, oversizedeared creature in the hallway.
Redhaired, nosy, a bit of a rascal, she said, Mars that will do.
Victor chuckled.
Mars grew quickly. By spring he claimed the entire left side of the sofa, convinced it was his right. At first Victor scolded him, then gave up. Sleeping alone in the flat was far worse than sharing the bed with a dog that snored and occasionally twitched a paw in its dreams.
Their friendship didnt blossom overnight; it developed slowly, like two people who have nothing urgent pressing on them. Morning walks became routine, dinner was a bowl of food at seven, the television a constant backdrop. Sometimes Victor talked aloud to Mars. The dog sat beside him, listening with a solemn stare, only yawning now and then to show his teeth.
Youre right, Victor would say. Enough.
And he would switch off the telly.
***
The accident happened in April on their way back from an evening stroll. Victors memory of the exact sequence was fuzzy. The road was slick; the car skidded onto the pavement, Mars was on his leash, and the strap snapped. Victor was thrown onto the curb, hit his side, lay there for a few seconds, hearing only his own breathing and a distant shout.
When he scrambled to his feet, Mars was gone.
The broken leash lay on the asphalt, its plastic clasp split in two.
He searched until midnight, covering three blocks, calling the dogs name, asking passersby. They shook their heads. One person mentioned seeing a ginger dog dash toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but had not seen where it went.
Back home Victor sat at the kitchen table, staring at an empty bowl.
Later he wrote an advertisement, printed twenty copies, and plastered them on every lamppost in the neighbourhood the next morning. He also phoned three veterinary practices and the shelter on Factory Lane.
If a ginger mixedbreed turns up, please call me, he told the receptionist. Heres my number.
A week passed. Then a month. The flyers faded in the May rain, and Victor replaced them. He did it again in June. The clinics stayed silent. The shelter called twice by mistake, each time about a different dog.
In July Mrs. Clarke cautiously said from the doorway,
Victor, maybe you should take another dog. The shelter has plenty.
No, Victor replied.
She didnt bring it up again.
The flat felt different without Mars. It wasnt empty; the cupboards were still full, the fridge hummed, neighbours upstairs started their morning chatter at half past nine as usual. Yet something had shifted.
Victor picked up an old rubber ball that Mars used to chase down the hallway, placed it on a shelf, then tucked it into a drawer, only to retrieve it again later and set it back.
Each morning his hand reached for the leash by the door out of habit. The leash hung there, unused. There was nowhere else to go.
He began walking alone, the same route, the same time, just without his companion. He couldnt explain why; he simply kept moving.
In August his daughter called from Birmingham.
Dad, come over. Stay with us for a while.
I cant, he said.
Why?
He paused, then answered, Maybe hell come back.
She was silent, then said, Alright, in that tone people use when they have something else on their mind but dont say it.
Mars returned in October.
Victor heard a scratching at the front door just after eight in the evening. At first he thought it was the wind rattling the stairwell, but the sound persisted, patient, as if someone knew the lock would eventually give.
He opened the door.
Mars sat on the mat, older now. His coat was trimmed in places where wounds had healed, his left side a little scarred, and around his neck hung a leather collar, brown with a brass buckle and a small tag that read Buddy.
Victor stood in the doorway, staring. Mars met his gaze. A floppy right ear, a ragged orange patch on his forehead shaped like a crooked star, the same amber eyes framed by dark lashes.
Where have you been? Victor asked.
Mars rose, trotted across the threshold, and moved through the flat as if hed memorised every room. He headed straight for his bowl, which was exactly where it had always beenempty, of course.
Victor closed the door, shivered as he opened the fridge.
Alright, he whispered to himself. Alright.
The next morning he drove to the veterinary practice. The staff examined Mars, gave him the needed vaccinations, checked his microchip. When Victor asked about the strange collar, the vet read the tag aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone gave him a different name, Victor replied.
Did he live with someone before?
Probably half a year somewhere, I dont know where.
The vet looked at Victor, then at Mars, then back at Victor.
It happens, she said. Dogs sometimes wander off and then find their way back, especially the clever ones.
Victor said nothing, watching Mars sit on the metal table, calm and stoic under the examination lights.
On the back of the tag they found a phone number. Victor called from his car while Mars sat in the back seat, watching the passing trees.
After three rings the call was answered.
Hello?
Good afternoon, Victor began. You had a dog, a ginger one. You called him Buddy.
A long pause.
Yes, a mature female voice replied. He left us in September. Weve been looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He went missing in April.
Another silence, then the woman said, He stayed with us for a while. We fed him, treated his injuries.
Thank you, Victor said. Hes a good dog.
A pause.
Do you live far from Birchwood Road? she asked.
Another part of town, Victor answered.
Oh my, she sighed. He turned up at our fence in April, just lay there and never left.
Victor watched the grey, leafless courtyard beyond his windshield. The conversation ended on its own. He hung up. Mars rested his head on his paws, eyes fixed on the window.
Back home Victor removed the foreign collar, placed it on the kitchen table and examined it. Brown leather, sturdy, the tag reading Buddy. It was wellmade, not cheap.
For half a year the dog had lived elsewhere, yet he had returned.
Victor thought of the woman from Birchwood Road, how she had fed, petted, and cared for him each day, only to lose him again in September. He imagined her searching, posting notices.
He dialed again.
Its me again, he said when she answered. If youd like to visit him, Im happy to arrange it.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Yes, really.
She came that Saturday. Mrs. Gillian Porter, sixtyfour, wearing a grey coat and a canvas bag filled with apple jam and a sack of dog foodthe very brand Mars had grown accustomed to over those months.
Mars saw her from the hallway, didnt rush, simply nudged his nose against her hand and wagged his tail.
They shared tea. Gillian told how shed found him by the fence in April, taken him to the vet, and how hed been frightened at first but soon settled in. Victor spoke of the crash, the broken leash, the endless flyers.
Mars lay between them, dozing, occasionally lifting his head to look at each of them.
He chose both of us, Gillian said.
Victor glanced at the dog, then at Gillian.
It seems so.
He put the unfamiliar collar back into the drawer, not discarding it.
Mars reclaimed the left side of the sofa and resumed his midnight games with the rubber ball. The flyers on the lampposts wilted in November rain and fell off on their own.
Gillian visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice on gooseberries; she kept a small garden on Birchwood Road, and Victor helped her tend it. They talked while Mars slept between them.
One evening Victor took the leather collar with the Buddy tag out of the drawer, examined it under the lamp. It glinted softly.
In the entryway hung two leashes: one old red one, and a new blue one that Gillian had silently added that Saturday.
Victor realized that life, like a wandering dog, may stray far from familiar streets, but love and patience can guide it home. The lesson lingered: when we keep the door open and the heart willing, even lost souls can find their way back.