The bag sat by the front door. Two bags, actually: one with bowls, the other with leftover food and a rubber ball that Buddy had dragged around the flat ever since he learned to walk.
Leo saw them before he even took off his trainers.
Buddy nudged his nose into the boy’s knee and wagged his tail so hard he knocked the bag. The bowl inside clinked. His ginger fur smelled of the yard, autumn leaves, and something warm, something purely dog-like that always made something tighten under Leo’s ribs. He crouched down, wrapped both arms around the dog. Buddy froze, pressed his side against the checked shirt, and rested his muzzle on the boy’s shoulder.
His back left leg gave way awkwardly. The dog had limped on it since puppyhood, and Leo was used to supporting him by the side when he sat down.
The kettle hummed in the kitchen. His mother stood by the stove, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. Quickly, a habitual motion, as she always did when she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. His father sat at the table, back straight, hands folded in front of him. A cup of coffee sat exactly in the centre of the saucer.
“Mum. What’s this for?”
Mary didn’t turn around. Her fingers on the ring moved faster.
“Dad, why are the bags by the door?”
George finished his coffee in one gulp. He set the cup on the saucer so precisely that it didn’t clink.
“Leo, we’ve decided. We’re taking the dog today.”
“Where?”
“To a shelter. Good conditions, I checked. Heated kennels, proper food.”
The boy looked at his mother. She stared out the window, where the grey October sky pressed down on the roofs. The ring kept spinning.
“Mum?”
The kettle clicked off. The silence made Buddy’s breathing in the hallway audible.
“Mum, say something to him.”
Mary adjusted the towel on the hook. Took it off, hung it again, even though it was already straight.
“Your dad’s right, love. We need to do the renovation. The dog will find it…”
“Buddy! His name is Buddy!”
“Buddy will find it difficult here. Paint, dust, tools on the floor. He might get ill.”
She spoke in an even voice, and every word sounded as if it wasn’t the first time. As if she and her husband had rehearsed the night before while Leo slept.
The boy gripped the edge of the chair. His knuckles went white.
“I’ll walk him three times a day. I’ll stay with him in my room. He won’t be in the way. Please.”
George stood up. The chair scraped briefly on the linoleum.
“I’ve said it, and that’s final. We leave in half an hour.”
“Please. Please don’t.”
His voice became thin. Not childish, but transparent, as if the words passed through him without stopping. Buddy scratched his claws on the tiles, limped into the kitchen, and sat down next to Leo, leaning his side against the boy’s leg. He rested his muzzle on his knee.
And stayed still. The dog’s eyes were brown, with reddish flecks, looking up calmly. He didn’t understand. He trusted everyone in this house.
Mary squeezed her eyes shut. For a second, maybe two. Then she opened them and reached into her pocket for the car keys.
Leo put on his jacket.
“Leo, you’d better stay home. You don’t need to go there.”
“No, I’m coming!” Leo was nearly crying.
The car smelled of petrol and warmed plastic. The sun hadn’t come out, and the city outside the window looked like a grey pencil drawing on wet paper. Buddy lay on the back seat, his muzzle on Leo’s lap. The boy didn’t cry. He sat upright, stroking the ginger head, his fingers moving slowly, steadily, as if memorising every bump, every curl of fur.
George glanced once in the rearview mirror. Quickly looked away.
Mary drove and thought about the wallpaper in the hallway. About rollers, about the colour “ivory” they’d chosen on Saturday at the hardware store. In a month, the flat would be bright. Clean. No fur on the sofa, no clicking of claws in the morning.
The shelter was on the outskirts, past some garages. A grey building with a metal door, behind which smelled of bleach, wet concrete, and something sour and thick that made you want to breathe through your mouth. From the depths came barking. Not loud, not angry. A sorrowful sound, as if someone was calling and no longer believed they’d be heard.
A woman in a green apron came out to meet them. She smiled at Buddy, rubbed his ear.
“Good boy, ginger. We’ll sort him out, don’t worry.”
Leo held the lead. With both hands, tightly, so the leather strap cut into his palms. His fingers were red from the tension.
“Leo, give it here.”
His father extended his hand. A large palm, smelling of engine oil, opened in front of the boy’s face.
Leo looked at the lead. Then at Buddy. Then at the lead again.
And slowly, he let his fingers open.
The woman took the lead and led Buddy down the corridor. The dog limped on his back left leg, and his claws clicked on the tiles, the sound echoing because the corridor was long and empty. At the turn, Buddy looked back.
The woman turned the corner. The clicking grew softer, softer. Then it stopped.
On the way back in the car, the boy sat behind the driver’s seat. Where Buddy had lain ten minutes earlier. The upholstery still held the scent: warm fur, yard, autumn leaves. Leo pressed his cheek to the seat and closed his eyes.
Mary reached for the radio. George shook his head. They drove home for twenty minutes. Not a single word.
At home, Leo took off his shoes, walked past the kitchen, and shut himself in his room. The door clicked quietly. Just closed.
Mary put away the empty bags, folded them neatly, stuffed them into the bin. Then she saw the bowl.
A red plastic bowl with tooth marks around the rim. Buddy had chewed it as a puppy, when he didn’t yet know that bowls weren’t for that. Mary picked it up, held it. The plastic was light and smooth, the tooth marks rough under her fingers. She put the bowl back on the floor.
The next day, they noticed odd things.
Leo didn’t ask what was for dinner. Didn’t turn on the TV. Didn’t take his school diary out of his backpack. Came home from school, took off his shoes, went to his room. Quiet, like a shadow on the wall.
Mary knocked.
“Leo, do you want pasta? With cheese, the way you like it.”
The bed creaked from inside. That was all.
She stood by the door for half a minute. Listened to the silence. Then walked away.
That evening, George said: he’ll get used to it. Kids forget quickly. In a week, he’ll be running around as before. He said it confidently, standing in the hallway where a scratch mark from Buddy’s claws was still visible on the wall, left in the first month.
On the fifth day, the teacher called. Her voice was cautious, like someone stepping on thin ice.
“Is everything all right at home?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“Leo doesn’t answer in class. At all. He sits and stares out the window. At break, he stands alone by the wall. Children approach him, but he stays silent.”
Mary bit her lip.
“We just… we rehomed the dog. To a shelter. He’ll get used to it.”
The teacher paused. A few seconds, and in that pause Mary heard more than in any words. Then the voice on the line said:
“I see.”
That “I see” hung in the flat all evening. Like the smell of paint that hadn’t been opened yet but was already there.
On the seventh day, Leo stopped coming to dinner. Mary would put a plate down. Then take it away untouched. The pasta cooled and formed a skin, and for some reason that was unbearable.
George bought rollers and primer. He tore off the old wallpaper in the hallway. Underneath, the walls were grey, with patches of old glue and a crack from floor to ceiling that had been hidden by a picture of a sailing ship. It smelled damp. It didn’t look beautiful. And the quiet wasn’t the quiet he had planned.
The red bowl still sat in the kitchen. Mary couldn’t bring herself to put it away. She picked it up three times, put it back three times. The fourth time she turned it upside down. Then she turned it right side up again.
One day, Mary went into her son’s room while he was at school. She wanted to tidy up.
On the table lay a drawing.
A house with a triangular roof and a chimney with smoke coming out. Ordinary, like all children draw. Next to it, a boy: stick legs, round head, arms out. And beside the boy, a ginger blob with four legs and a curly tail. The boy and the dog were drawn brightly, with a red felt-tip and an orange crayon, pressed hard so the paper was dented.
But the house was empty. Windows without curtains, door wide open. Inside, no figures, no furniture. White.
No mum. No dad. Just white space behind the open door.
Mary sat on her son’s bed. She picked up the drawing, brought it closer. At the bottom, under the house, in crooked tiny letters: “Buddy I’ll come.”
No comma. No full stop. A promise written by a hand that still hadn’t learned to make letters straight.
The ring on her finger pressed so hard that Mary took it off. She placed it on the table next to the drawing. And sat there, staring at the wall, because she wasn’t thinking about wallpaper. Not about the colour “ivory”. Not about fur or claws.
She was thinking that her son had drawn a house in which she didn’t exist.
That evening, Mary put the drawing in front of George. She didn’t explain anything. Just placed it on the table, next to his plate.
He looked at it for a long time. Then he pushed his plate away.
“We’ll get him back.”
Mary blinked.
“Buddy. Tomorrow morning.”
And it was he who said it, not she. She had expected an argument, persuasion, being jabbed with the drawing. But George was looking at the empty house without people, and something moved on his face, as if his muscles didn’t know what expression to make.
“Tomorrow. First thing.”
Mary nodded. She wanted to say “thank you,” but the word stuck. There was nothing to thank him for. This wasn’t a gift. It was an attempt to fix what they themselves had broken.
In the morning, they drove to the shelter. The same metal door. The same smell of bleach and wet concrete. The woman came out to meet them, this time in a blue apron, but the face was the same.
Buddy recognised them from the doorway. He lunged at the kennel gate, whimpered, wagged his tail so hard his whole body shook. He’d lost weight in those days: ribs showed through his ginger fur, and his back left leg gave way more than before. He limped towards them faster than he could.
George took the lead. The same leather one, worn. His palm grasped the strap habitually.
At home, Leo sat in his room. The door was closed.
Claws clicked on the tiles in the hallway. Softly. Unevenly, with a hitch every fourth step.
The bedroom door opened.
The boy stood in the doorway. Buddy rushed to him, pressed his nose into his stomach, licked his hand, his knee, his hand again. His tail thumped against the wall.
Leo dropped to the floor. His fingers buried themselves in the ginger fur, which smelled of the shelter, bleach, something foreign. But beneath that was another scent, old, real, the one that always tightened under his ribs.
He spoke his first word in days:
“Buddy.”
Then he lifted his head. Looked at his mother. At his father.
Mary crouched down beside him.
“Leo, love…”
He didn’t pull away. But he didn’t lean in either. He just sat on the floor, hugging the dog, and looked at them as if seeing them for the first time. And he wasn’t sure he recognised them.
Buddy licked the boy’s chin and calmed down. He lay down next to him, pressing his warm side against him.
Mary poured food into the red plastic bowl with tooth marks around the rim. Buddy limped to the kitchen, claws clicking, and began eating greedily, hurriedly. Leo sat next to him.
And George stood in the hallway, where the stripped walls smelled of damp and old glue. The roller lay in the corner, covered in dust. The primer had dried in the can. The crack from floor to ceiling hadn’t gone anywhere.
From the kitchen came the sound of the bowl scraping on the floor and the dog eating.
George stood and looked at the walls. The renovation hadn’t progressed at all. And now it didn’t matter whether it would. Because in this house, something else needed fixing.