George 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, Emily 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: one held bowls, the other leftover food and a rubber ball that Buddy had dragged around the flat ever since he’d learned to walk.
James saw them before he’d even taken off his trainers.
Buddy nudged his nose against 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, utterly dog-like, that always made something tighten in James’s chest. 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 crumpled awkwardly. The dog had limped on it since he was a puppy, and James was used to supporting his side when he sat down.
The kettle hummed in the kitchen. Emily stood by the hob, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. Quickly, a habitual gesture she always made when she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. George sat at the table, back straight, hands folded in front of him. A coffee cup sat exactly in the centre of the saucer.
“Mum. What’s that for?”
Emily didn’t turn. Her fingers sped up on the ring.
“Dad, why are the bags by the door?”
George finished his coffee in one gulp. Set the cup on the saucer so precisely it didn’t clink.
“James, 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 rooftops. The ring kept turning.
“Mum?”
The kettle clicked off. In the silence, they could hear Buddy breathing in the hallway.
“Mum, say something.”
Emily straightened the tea towel on the hook. Took it down, hung it again, though it was already straight.
“Dad’s right, James love. We need to do the renovation. The dog would be…”
“Buddy! His name is Buddy!”
“Buddy would find it difficult. Paint, dust, tools on the floor. It might make him poorly.”
She spoke in a flat voice, each word sounding as if it hadn’t been said for the first time. As if she and George had rehearsed it the night before while James 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 get in the way. Please.”
George stood. The chair scraped across the linoleum.
“I’ve said it, so it’s decided. We leave in half an hour.”
“Please. Please, don’t.”
His voice turned thin. Not childish, but transparent, as if the words passed through the boy without stopping. Buddy scratched his claws on the tiles, limped into the kitchen, and sat beside him, leaning his side against James’s leg. He rested his muzzle on his knee.
And stayed still. The dog’s eyes were brown, flecked with ginger, and they looked up calmly. He didn’t understand. He trusted everyone in this house.
Emily squeezed her eyes shut. For a second, maybe two. Then she opened them and reached into her pocket for the car keys.
James pulled on his jacket.
“James, it’s better if you stay home. You don’t need to come.”
“No, I’m coming!” James was almost crying.
In the car it smelled of petrol and warm plastic. The sun never came out, and the town outside looked drawn in grey pencil on wet paper. Buddy lay on the back seat, his muzzle resting on James’s knees. The boy didn’t cry. He sat upright, stroking the ginger head, and his fingers moved slowly, steadily, as if memorising every bump, every curl of fur.
George glanced once in the rear-view mirror. Quickly looked away.
Emily drove and thought about the wallpaper in the hallway. About rollers, about the colour “ivory” they’d picked out at the DIY shop on Saturday. 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, behind a row of garages. A grey building with a metal door, behind which it smelled of bleach, wet concrete, and something sour, thick, that made you want to breathe through your mouth. From deeper inside came barking. Not loud, not angry. Lonely, as if someone were calling and no longer believed they’d be heard.
A woman in a green apron came out to meet them. She smiled at Buddy, ruffled his ear.
“Good boy, ginger. We’ll sort him out, don’t worry.”
James held the lead. With both hands, tightly, so the leather strap bit into his palms. His fingers reddened from the tension.
“James, give it.”
His father held out his hand. A big palm, smelling of engine oil, opened in front of the boy’s face.
James looked at the lead. Then at Buddy. Then back at the lead.
And he let go. Slowly.
The woman took the lead and walked 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 turned the corner. The clicking grew softer, softer. And disappeared.
In the car on the way back, the boy sat behind the driver’s seat. Where Buddy had been lying ten minutes earlier. The upholstery still held the smell: warm fur, garden, autumn leaves. James pressed his cheek against the seat and closed his eyes.
Emily reached for the radio. George shook his head. They drove home for twenty minutes. Not a single word.
At home James took off his shoes, walked past the kitchen, and shut himself in his room. The door clicked quietly. Just closed.
Emily put the empty bags away, 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 gnawed it as a puppy, back when he didn’t know bowls weren’t for that. Emily picked it up, held it. The plastic was light and smooth, and the tooth marks felt rough under her fingers. She put the bowl back on the floor.
The next day, they noticed oddities.
James didn’t ask what was for dinner. Didn’t turn on the telly. Didn’t take his schoolbag out. He came home from school, took off his shoes, went to his room. Quiet, like a shadow on the wall.
Emily knocked.
“James, do you want pasta? With cheese, like you like.”
Behind the door, the bed creaked. Then nothing.
She stood at the door for half a minute. Listened to the silence. Walked away.
That evening George said: he’ll get used to it. Children 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 his first month.
On the fifth day the teacher rang. Her voice was cautious, like someone stepping on thin ice.
“Is everything all right at home?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“James doesn’t answer in class. At all. He sits and stares out the window. At break he stands alone by the wall. Children go up to him, he says nothing.”
Emily 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 silence Emily heard more than in any words. Then the voice said:
“I see.”
That “I see” hung over the flat all evening. Like the smell of paint not yet opened, but already there.
On the seventh day James stopped coming to dinner. Emily put a plate down. Collected it untouched. The pasta cooled and grew a skin, and somehow that was unbearable.
George bought rollers and primer. Tore off the old wallpaper in the hallway. Underneath the walls were grey, spotted with old glue, with a crack from floor to ceiling that used to be hidden by a print of a sailing ship. It smelled damp. It wasn’t pretty. And the silence wasn’t the one he’d planned.
The red bowl still sat in the kitchen. Emily couldn’t bring herself to move it. Three times she picked it up, three times she put it back. On the fourth she turned it upside down. Then put it right side up again.
One day Emily went into her son’s room while he was at school. She wanted to tidy.
On the desk lay a drawing.
A house with a triangular roof and a chimney with smoke. Ordinary, like any child draws. Next to it a boy: stick legs, round head, arms out. And next to the boy an orange smudge with four legs and a curly tail. The boy and the dog were drawn brightly, with red felt-tip 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 behind the open door.
Emily sat on her son’s bed. She picked up the drawing, brought it closer. Below the house, in crooked tiny letters: “Buddy I’ll come.”
No comma. No full stop. A promise written by a hand that hadn’t yet learned to form letters evenly.
The ring on her finger pressed so hard that Emily took it off. Put it on the desk next to the drawing. And sat, staring at the wall, because she wasn’t thinking about wallpaper. Not about the colour “ivory.” Not about fur or claws.
She thought about the son who had drawn a house where she didn’t exist.
That evening Emily placed the drawing in front of George. She didn’t explain. Just put it on the table, next to his plate.
He looked at it for a long time. Then pushed his plate aside.
“We’ll get him back.”
Emily blinked.
“Buddy. Tomorrow morning.”
And it was he who said it, not her. She had expected to argue, to persuade, to point at the drawing. But George was staring at the empty house without people, and something moved on his face, as if his muscles didn’t know what expression to form.
“Tomorrow. First thing.”
Emily nodded. She wanted to say “thank you,” but the word stuck. There was nothing to thank for. This wasn’t a gift. It was an attempt to fix what they themselves had broken.
In the morning they went 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 had lost weight in those days: ribs showed through the ginger fur, and his back left leg gave way more than before. He limped towards them faster than he could manage.
George took the lead. The same leather one, worn. His palm closed around the strap habitually.
At home James sat in his room. Door closed.
Claws clicked on the hallway tiles. Softly. Unevenly, a hitch every fourth step.
The bedroom door opened.
The boy stood in the doorway. Buddy dashed to him, shoved his nose into his stomach, licked his hand, his knee, his hand again. His tail thumped against the wall.
James dropped to the floor. His fingers buried themselves in the ginger fur that smelled of the shelter, of bleach, of the unfamiliar. But beneath that smell was another, old, real, the one that always made something tighten in his chest.
He spoke his first word in days:
“Buddy.”
Then he lifted his head. Looked at his mother. At his father.
Emily crouched beside him.
“James 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 wasn’t sure he recognised them.
Buddy licked the boy’s chin and calmed down. Lay beside him, warm side pressed close.
Emily poured food into the red plastic bowl with teeth marks around the rim. Buddy limped into the kitchen, claws clicking, and began to eat greedily, hurriedly. James sat beside 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 its pot. The crack from floor to ceiling was still there.
From the kitchen came the sound of the bowl scraping the floor and a soft chomping.
George stood and looked at the walls. The renovation hadn’t moved forward. And now it didn’t matter whether it would. Because in this house, there was something else entirely that needed fixing.
