Home Is Where Your Bark Is

Chapter 20

The dog jerked awake from a noise outside, the remnants of a dream clinging to him. He’d dreamed of the man with the calm demeanor who’d reintroduced the dog to the joy of intentional play with humans, and now the dog wanted more. More, more, more. Play called to him the same way food did. Perhaps he wanted it too much. The man had left the dog here with the woman for long enough now that the dog wondered if his stay with him was finished.

Given how the man’s scent still clung to the woman’s skin after their mouth-on-mouth exchange at her doorstep this morning, the dog was hopeful to see him again. It was one of the dog’s least favorite things about humans, how unclear they were about their departures. Arrivals were easy. They were here. Departures, less so.

Not sharing his concerns, the woman was dozing on the couch half-hidden under a blanket, her breathing even and slow.

The dog got up from where he’d been napping on the rug and walked over to the water bowl that had been brought over from the man’s home along with a selection of antlers and other chews that seemed to be solely for the dog’s use. Aside from on these things and on the woman, the man’s scent was nowhere else in the woman’s home, and the dog suspected they weren’t mated pairs like some humans the dog had stayed with.

With his last family, the dog had come here once before. The scent of that woman was strong in many places here, and the scents of Sam and Joseph clung to the lower portions of the walls and windows where their busy hands had touched, but those scents were more faded than the mother’s. As entertaining as the young boys had been, the dog no longer wished to return to their home. There, the dog had been continually bracing for an eruption like he’d experienced in other homes—pieces of furniture and angry words hurled with the same force.

Finished lapping up water, the dog trotted over to where this woman was dozing. Human families were more complicated than canine ones, but from the similarities in their scents, the dog sensed the two women shared the same blood and had been raised together like the two boys. This woman—Jenna, as her people called her—was calmer than her sister, and the dog preferred her company.

Propping his front paws on the edge of the couch, the dog sniffed along her hairline. Her wound was healing, but the rich scent of blood still clung to it. The smell of the sweet treat she’d eaten before curling up on the couch still carried on her breath. Hoping to snag some for himself, the dog dropped to all fours and trotted into the kitchen, sniffing along the counters and nudging the pantry door with his nose to find that it was tightly closed. No food had been left out within reach, and the lid on the trash proved locked.

Disappointed, the dog lapped up some more water before remembering the treats that had been in the woman’s jacket earlier. Had she given him all of them? The jacket had been hung beside the door, and the dog trotted over, his mouth watering. Sure enough, one of the pockets still held a few. After tugging the jacket free from the hook, with a bit of finagling, the dog worked the treats out from the pocket with his nose, one by one.

Afterward, he sprawled across the floor and chomped on an antler, hoping to ease the anxiousness that had set up in his jaw for a good chew. The comforting sensation of his teeth crunching down on the antler soon made the dog want to doze again, and his thoughts returned to the man, to Jake. “Seven,” he was still calling him, making him long to answer to it. Seven, Seven, Seven.

In the dog’s dream earlier, he’d been running alongside the man as they’d been doing in the still dark of early morning, but there had been no leash tethering the dog to him. Even so, the dog had been running as contentedly as could be alongside the man on the long stretch of sand that flanked the endless water at the beach where they’d run yesterday as the sun was rising. In the dream, the dog had even slowed his pace to match the man’s. Dreams were confusing like that. The dog had no memory of running beside any human that way. Perhaps he had once as a puppy, but those memories were too faded now to parse out.

The dog had never been to a piece of earth as enticing as that one—oh, the smells that radiated up from the sand! Then there was the water. It stretched out endlessly and smelled of the fish that swam in it. If the dog ever got the chance to run free there, he’d never be able to contain his excitement to run alongside a human at their considerably slower pace. He’d run and run and never stop.

Tired and wanting a soft spot to doze, the dog spied the empty end of the couch just past the woman’s feet. The rug and stiff-sided chair weren’t nearly as tempting as the couch for a short doze. Sleeping as she was, she wouldn’t even know he was beside her. Eyelids getting heavy, the dog abandoned his antler and made his way to the couch, moving stealthily so as not to wake her. He circled a few times and curled into a tight ball, but even so, the bottoms of her feet were still within easy reach. As he was beginning to doze, the woman shifted in her sleep, and suddenly the bottoms of her socked feet were pressing gently against his back.

Lifting his head, the dog watched her for the rise and fall of several of her breaths. Her sleep continued on, peaceful and even, and he remembered the way her deft fingers had felt as they scratched the hard-to-get places underneath his collar.

He’d never once slept this close to a human, but his choice was to abandon the comfort of the couch and warmth of her feet for the unwelcoming floor or the stiff chair. After another few breaths, the dog allowed his head to come to rest on his front paws once again and his eyes to drift closed.

Only this once.