Gary was certain: the renovation mattered more; his son would get over it. The dog was taken to the shelter despite the boy’s pleas. But eleven days later, Mary walked into her son’s room and found a drawing that turned everything upside down.
The bag stood by the front door. Two bags, to be precise: in one were bowls, in the other the last of the kibble and a rubber ball that Buddy had carried around the flat ever since he learned to walk.
Alex 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 garden, autumn leaves, and something warm, something purely dog-like that always made Alex’s chest tighten. 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 paw turned under awkwardly. The dog had limped on it since puppyhood, and Alex was used to steadying him by the flank when he sat down.
The kettle hummed in the kitchen. His mother stood at the hob, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. Quick, habitual movement, the way 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 that for?”
Mary didn’t turn around. Her fingers on the ring sped up.
“Dad, why are there bags by the door?”
Gary finished his coffee in one gulp. Set the cup on the saucer so precisely it didn’t clink.
“Alex, we’ve decided. We’re taking the dog today.”
“Where?”
“To a shelter. Good conditions, I checked. Heated kennels, decent food.”
The boy looked at his mother. She stared out the window, where the grey October sky pressed down on the rooftops. The ring kept turning.
“Mum?”
The kettle clicked off. The silence let them hear Buddy breathing in the hallway.
“Mum, say something to him.”
Mary adjusted the tea towel on the hook. Took it off, hung it again, though it was straight.
“Dad’s right, Alex. We need to do the renovation. It’ll be hard for the dog here…”
“Buddy! His name is Buddy!”
“…hard for Buddy here. Paint, dust, tools on the floor. He might get sick.”
She spoke in a flat voice, and each word sounded rehearsed. As if she and Gary had practised the night before while Alex 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.”
Gary stood up. The chair scraped across the linoleum.
“I said no, and that’s final. We leave in half an hour.”
“Please. Please don’t.”
His voice turned thin. Not childish, but transparent, as though the words passed through him without stopping. Buddy scratched his claws on the tiles, limped into the kitchen, and sat down, leaning his side against Alex’s leg. He laid his muzzle on the boy’s knee.
And stayed still. The dog’s eyes were brown with flecks of ginger, 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.
Alex pulled on his jacket.
“Alex, you’d better stay home. You don’t need to go there.”
“No, I’m coming!” Alex was nearly crying.
The car smelled of petrol and warm plastic. The sun hadn’t come out, and the city beyond the window looked drawn in grey pencil on wet paper. Buddy lay on the back seat, his head on Alex’s lap. The boy didn’t cry. He sat upright, stroking the ginger head, and his fingers moved slowly, evenly, as if memorising every bump, every whorl of fur.
Gary glanced in the rear-view mirror once. Quickly looked away.
Mary drove and thought about the wallpaper in the hallway. About rollers, about the colour “ivory” they’d picked out 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 the garages. A grey building with a metal door, behind which it smelled of bleach, wet concrete, and something sour and thick that made you want to breathe through your mouth. From deeper inside came barking. Not loud, not angry. Desolate, as though someone was calling out and no longer believed they’d be heard.
A woman in a green apron came out to meet them. She smiled at Buddy, scratched behind his ear.
“Good boy, ginger. We’ll sort him out, don’t worry.”
Alex held the lead. With both hands, tight, so the leather strap bit into his palms. His fingers were red from the tension.
“Alex, hand it over.”
His father held out his hand. A big palm, smelling of engine oil, open in front of the boy’s face.
Alex looked at the lead. Then at Buddy. Then back at the lead.
And he let go. Slowly.
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, and the sound echoed because the corridor was long and empty. At the turn, Buddy looked back.
The woman rounded the corner. The clicking grew softer, softer. And faded away.
In the car on the way back, the boy sat behind the driver’s seat. Where Buddy had lain ten minutes earlier. The upholstery still held the smell: warm fur, garden, autumn leaves. Alex pressed his cheek to the seat and closed his eyes.
Mary reached for the radio. Gary shook his head. They drove home for twenty minutes. Not a single word.
At home, Alex took off his shoes, walked past the kitchen, and shut himself in his room. The door clicked softly. 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 teeth marks around the rim. Buddy had chewed it as a puppy, when he didn’t yet know bowls weren’t for gnawing. Mary picked it up, held it in her hands. The plastic was light and smooth, the tooth marks rough under her fingers. She set the bowl back on the floor.
The next day, they noticed the changes.
Alex didn’t ask what was for dinner. Didn’t turn on the telly. Didn’t take his school diary out of his backpack. He came home from school, took off his shoes, went to his room. Quiet as a shadow on the wall.
Mary knocked.
“Alex, do you want pasta? With cheese, the way you like it.”
The bed creaked behind the door. Nothing else.
She stood there for half a minute. Listened to the silence. Walked away.
That evening Gary 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 from Buddy’s claws was still visible on the wall from his 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?”
“Alex doesn’t answer in class. At all. He sits and stares out the window. At break he stands by the wall alone. Kids approach him, and he stays quiet.”
Mary bit her lip.
“We just… we gave the dog away. To a shelter. He’ll adjust.”
The teacher paused. A few seconds, and in that silence Mary heard more than in any words. Then the voice on the line said:
“I understand.”
That “I understand” hung in the flat all evening. Like the smell of paint not yet opened, but already there.
On the seventh day, Alex stopped coming out for dinner. Mary put a plate on the table. Took it away untouched. The pasta cooled and formed a skin, and that somehow became unbearable.
Gary 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 used to be hidden by a picture of a sailboat. It smelled damp. It didn’t look beautiful. And the silence wasn’t what he’d planned either.
The red bowl still sat in the kitchen. Mary couldn’t bring herself to put it away. Three times she picked it up, three times she set it back. On the fourth, 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 meant to tidy up.
On the desk lay a drawing.
A house with a triangular roof and a chimney with smoke. Normal, 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 red marker and 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 beyond 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 little letters: “Buddy I’ll come.”
No comma. No full stop. A promise written by a hand that hadn’t yet learned to form a straight ‘g’ or ‘l’.
The ring on her finger pressed so hard that Mary took it off. She placed it on the desk 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 placed the drawing in front of Gary. She didn’t explain anything. Just put it on the table, next to his plate.
He looked at it for a long time. Then pushed his plate aside.
“We’re getting him back.”
Mary blinked.
“Buddy. Tomorrow morning.”
And it was him who said it, not her. She had expected to argue, persuade, shove the drawing in his face. But Gary stared at the empty house with no people, and something moved on his face, as if his muscles didn’t know what expression to form.
“Tomorrow. First thing.”
Mary nodded. She wanted to say “thank you”, but the word got 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 arrived at 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 her 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 had lost weight in those days: ribs showed under the ginger fur, and his back left leg gave way more than before. He limped towards them faster than he could.
Gary took the lead. The same leather one, worn. His hand closed around the strap as if it had never left.
At home, Alex sat in his room. The door was closed.
Claws clicked on the tiles in the hallway. Quietly. Unevenly, with a hitch every fourth step.
The bedroom door opened.
The boy stood in the doorway. Buddy rushed to him, pushed his muzzle into his stomach, licked his hand, his knee, his hand again. His tail thumped against the wall.
Alex sank to the floor. His fingers buried themselves in the ginger fur, which smelled of the shelter, bleach, something foreign. But beneath that smell was another, old, real—the one that always made his chest tighten.
He said the first word in days:
“Buddy.”
Then he lifted his head. Looked at his mother. At his father.
Mary crouched beside him.
“Alex…”
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 Alex.
Mary poured kibble into the red plastic bowl with teeth marks around the rim. Buddy limped to the kitchen, claws clicking, and began eating hungrily, hastily. Alex sat beside him.
And Gary stood in the hallway where the stripped walls smelled damp and of old glue. The roller lay in the corner, covered in dust. The primer had dried in the tin. The crack from floor to ceiling hadn’t gone anywhere.
From the kitchen came the sound of the bowl scraping the floor and the dog’s chewing.
Gary stood and looked at the walls. The renovation hadn’t progressed. And now it didn’t matter whether it would. Because in this house, there was something else that needed fixing.