Victor found the little thing on the road in October.
A shivering, rainslick puppy was curled up at the edge of the Aroad, eyes fixed on the passing lorries as if waiting for a particular person. Victor had been driving out to his country cottage to fetch a sack of potatoes, eased off the accelerator for a moment, thinking the creature would simply glance away. The pup lifted its head, and everything changed in an instant. The potatoes stayed buried in the earth for another week.
He named him Mars. The name came from his neighbour, Mrs. Ethel Green, who spotted the ginger, oversized bundle of fur in the hallway and declared:
Redmuzzled, clumsy, a right little wandererMars. Fits perfectly.
Victor laughed at the suggestion.
Mars grew fast. By spring he claimed the whole left side of the sofa as his kingdom, and he considered it his birthright. At first Victor scolded him, then he stopped. Sleeping alone in the flat felt colder than sharing the night with a dog that snores and occasionally kicks in his sleep.
Their friendship didnt blossom overnight; it unfolded slowly, like two strangers who discover theres no hurry to part. Morning walks, a bowl of food at seven, the television murmuring in the background. Sometimes Victor talked aloud to Mars; the dog sat rigid, listening with solemn eyes, only yawning now and then, baring his teeth in a lazy grin.
Youre right, Victor would say. Enough. And he switched off the TV.
—
The crash came in April as they were returning from an evening stroll.
Victors memory of the exact moment was fuzzy. The road was slick; his car skidded onto the pavement, the leash snapped, and he was thrown against the curb. He lay there for a few breathless seconds, hearing only his own ragged breathing and a distant shout.
When he pushed himself up, Mars was gone.
The broken leash lay on the blacktop, its plastic clasp split in two.
Victor searched until midnight, trudging three blocks, calling the name, asking passersby. People shook their heads. One man said hed seen a ginger dog dart toward the railway crossing about forty minutes earlier, but that was all.
Back home, Victor sat at the kitchen table, staring at the empty food bowl.
He rose, typed up a notice, printed twenty copies, and the next morning plastered them across the neighbourhood. He called three veterinary practices and the animal shelter on Factory Lane.
If a ginger mutt turns up, please call me, he said into the phone. My number is
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 remained silent. The shelter called twice, both times by mistake, each time about a different dog.
In July, Mrs. Ethel leaned out from behind her door and said softly,
Victor, maybe youd consider taking another dog? The shelters full.
No, Victor replied, and she never asked again.
The flat without Mars felt different. Not empty, just strange. The fridge hummed, neighbours thumped upstairs at half past nine as usual, but something had shifted.
Victor lifted the old rubber ball Mars used to chase down the hallway, set it on the shelf, then tucked it into a drawer, only to pull it out again later and leave it on the shelf.
Each morning his hand reached reflexively for the leash by the front door. The leash hung there, unused, and there was nowhere left to go.
He began taking walks alone, the same route, the same time, just without the companion he could not explain losing. He kept moving.
In August his daughter called from Birmingham.
Dad, come stay with us. Rest a while.
I cant, Victor said.
Why?
He paused. Maybe hell turn up.
She was quiet, then said Alright in that sort of tone that means youre holding back something else.
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 door would open eventually.
He opened it.
Mars sat on the mat, older now. His coat was clipped in a few places where old wounds must have been, a spot on his left flank burned a little. Around his neck hung a leather collar, brown and worn, with a brass buckle and a tiny tag that read a single word: Buddy.
Victor stood in the doorway, stunned, as Mars stared back. His right ear drooped, a ragged amber patch on his forehead shaped like a crooked star, the same amber eyes rimmed with dark.
Where have you been? Victor asked.
Mars rose, slipped through the threshold, and navigated the flat with the confidence of one who knows every corner. He padded to his bowlstill emptyand then settled.
Victor shut the door, shuffled to the kitchen, his hands trembling as he opened the fridge.
Alright, he whispered. Alright.
The next morning he drove to the veterinary practice. They examined Mars, gave him the necessary vaccinations, checked his microchip. Victor asked about the strange collar. The vet lifted the tag and read aloud:
Buddy. Is that another name?
Someone else called him that, Victor said. He lived somewhere else for six months, I think.
The vet looked at him, then at the dog, then back at Victor.
It happens, she said. Dogs wander and sometimes find their way back, especially the clever ones.
Victor said nothing, watching Mars sit on the stainlesssteel table, eyes steady as the vet worked.
On the back of the tag was a phone number. Victor dialed it from the car while Mars rested on the back seat, nose pressed against the window.
After three rings, a voice answered.
Hello?
Good evening, Victor began. Im calling about a dog you had. A ginger one you called Buddy.
A long silence.
Yes, a womans voice finally said, a little rough with age. He was ours. He left in September. Weve been looking for him.
Hes with me now. His name is Mars. He disappeared in April.
Silence stretched again. The woman finally said,
He was with us. We fed him, treated his wounds.
Thank you, Victor replied.
Hes a good dog.
Yes.
A pause. Do you live far from Birch Street?
No, a different area.
Oh dear, she sighed. He turned up at our fence in April, just lay there and never left.
Victor stared out at the grey, leafless park beyond the windshield.
The call ended on its own. Victor put the phone away. Mars snored gently on the back seat, head tucked between his paws.
At home Victor slipped the foreign collar off Mars, placed it on the kitchen table, and stared at it. Brown leather, a brass tag that read Buddy. Wellmade, not cheap.
Six months somewheresomeone had owned the dog, and still he had found his way back.
Victor thought of the woman from Birch Street, how she had fed him daily, petted him, grown attached, then in September she woke up and he was gone. She must have posted notices, called around.
He dialed again.
Its me again, he said when she answered. If youd like to visit him, Im happy to arrange that.
Silence.
Really? she asked.
Really.
She came that Saturday. Mrs. Gillian Porter, sixtyfour, in a grey coat and a canvas bag filled with apple jam and a packet of dog biscuitsthe very treats Mars had grown accustomed to over those months.
Mars saw her from the hallway, didnt sprint. He padded over, nudged her hand with his nose, tail wagging warmly.
They shared tea. Gillian recounted how shed found Mars by her fence in April, taken him to the vet, how frightened he was at first, then how quickly he settled. Victor spoke of the crash, the broken leash, the flyers that never seemed to catch anyones eye.
Mars lay between them, dozing. Occasionally he lifted his head, eyes flicking from one to the other.
He chose us both, Gillian said gently.
Victor looked at the dog, then at the woman beside him.
Seems thats how it is.
He tucked the foreign collar into a drawer, not discarding it.
Mars resumed his habit of occupying the left half of the sofa and chasing the ball down the corridor at one in the morning. The flyers on the lampposts fell soggy in the November rain and peeled off by themselves.
Gillian visited every Saturday, bringing jam, sometimes asking for advice about blackcurrantsshe tended a garden on Birch Street, and Victor helped with his own allotment. They talked while Mars rested between them.
One evening Victor pulled the leather collar with the Buddy tag from the drawer, held it up. The brass shone under the kitchen light.
Two leashes hung by the entryway: one red, frayed with age; one blue, brandnew, the one Gillian had silently left there one Saturday, never asking permission to hang it.
The night settled over the flat, the citys hum low outside, and Victor felt, for the first time in months, the steady, unremarkable rhythm of life returningone small, ambereyed heartbeat at a time.
