Part 2
Dr. Voss opened the crate while Ben steadied it, then wrapped Finn’s paw in a folded towel. She examined the torn nail and shook her head at the transport worker. “Cancel this one. He can’t spend two hours doing that.”
The injury was small. Finding somewhere for him to go was harder. Mara ran a finger down the foster list on her phone, stopped, and looked at Ben.
“Don’t,” he said.
“You live close enough to bring him over.”
“Mara.”
She put the phone away. “I need a safe place for him while we get those runs open. You know the building. You know us. He knows you.”
Finn had recovered Ben’s glove from the top of the blanket pile and was worrying one finger between his teeth. Ben took a step toward him; the puppy took two steps back. Mara watched them without offering to intervene.
“How long?” Ben asked.
“Three nights. And you can bring him to see Nell every day.”
Ben looked toward the medical hall. Forty-five years old, a mortgage almost paid off, a yard with a good fence: on paper he had very few grounds for refusing. The grounds he did have were difficult to explain while a puppy stood chewing his glove.
“Three,” he said.
Mara went to get the foster form before he could elaborate.
Before leaving, Ben let Finn meet Nell at the medical gate. Their noses touched through the opening beside the frame, and Nell shifted her weight to stay close. Ben waited until she had settled before easing Finn back. “We’ll be here tomorrow.” The puppy turned twice along the hallway, checking behind him.
Ben drove the short way around to his house with Finn secured in the back. Although he could walk through the trees, he wanted the food, bedding, and puppy brought home in one trip. In the mudroom, Finn sniffed Ranger’s old dog door and pushed through it before Ben had thought to show him.
The yard looked secure. Ben checked the latch, walked the fence, and pushed his boot against its lower edge. Snow lay thinly across the grass, with bare ground in the strip sheltered by the porch roof. He saw no opening big enough for a puppy and went inside.
Finn explored every room Ben allowed him into. Within minutes he emerged with a sock, took the kitchen turn too fast, and slid sideways across the floor. He scrambled up and stared at the linoleum as if it had moved under him.
Ben put down the bowl he was carrying. “You get used to it.”
The puppy snatched up the sock again. Ben followed, slower this time, and retrieved it in exchange for a toy from the shelter bag. He put a runner down through the kitchen before preparing dinner.
Finn finished his own food and stationed himself under Ben’s chair. His head stayed tilted at exactly the height of Ben’s knee. Ben tried ignoring him, then discovered he was explaining the difference between puppy food and his own supper to an animal who had shown no interest in the distinction.
A piece of chicken slipped from his fork. Finn caught it beside his boot, swallowed, and resumed his position.
“That wasn’t an invitation,” Ben said.
Afterward, he reached for the radio on the counter. For months he had turned it on the moment he came home and left it running until bed. This time, a scraping noise from the living room distracted him. He left the radio off and went to see what Finn was moving.
The puppy came through the hall carrying a faded rubber ball. Ben knew the chew marks before he bent far enough to see them clearly. Ranger had worried that seam open years ago and continued bringing the ball back long after it had stopped bouncing properly.
Ben had thought he’d put it away with the rest. He looked toward the spare room and saw the dust Finn had brushed from beneath the low shelving. The ball must have rolled under there when he packed the box.
Finn laid it against Ben’s boot. Ben started to reach for it, stopped, and lowered himself to the floor instead. The puppy waited, then stretched out beside the ball with a sigh. Ben sat until the kitchen pipes had finished their faint knocking and Finn’s breathing had slowed.
He put a little bed outside his bedroom that night. Finn tried it, circled once more, and left to stand at the front window. Light from the shelter’s medical wing showed through the trees.
Ben watched from the hall. “She’s in there. Same place.”
One pale ear turned toward him. The puppy kept his nose near the glass, where his breath made a patch of mist. Ben waited, called him again, and eventually heard the soft fall of feet following him toward the bedroom.
The ball came too. Finn settled with it against his chest, and Ben left his own door open so he could hear him. Once or twice the puppy shifted. Then the house grew still, with a small breathing sound just beyond the threshold.
Ben woke at 5:43.
He didn’t know what had disturbed him. The bedroom was dark, his alarm had not gone off, and the space outside the door looked empty. He lay listening before he switched on the lamp.
Finn’s bed was vacant. The ball lay on the floor beside it.
Ben checked the living room and kitchen, then went quickly down the hall. In the mudroom, the old dog door hung crooked, its flap caught against the frame. Cold air washed across his bare ankles.
He pulled on boots without socks and stepped outside. At first the fence looked exactly as he had left it. Then he saw the disturbed earth beneath the sheltered section nearest the porch, a dark mound against the dusting of snow.
The hole was shallow and wider on the yard side. Finn had scraped at the soft ground until he could force himself under the fence. Ben bent and put a hand into the gap, feeling the cold earth against his knuckles.
“Finn!” He waited. Beyond the yard, a branch tapped another branch, and nothing came running.
He hurried inside for a coat and grabbed the leash hanging beside the mudroom door. On the porch, he recognized Ranger’s worn leather lead in his hand. For an instant he saw it lying across the passenger seat on that last drive home.
He put it on the rail. There were shelter slip leads in the foster bag; he took one of those and his phone, then went through the gate.
The trees behind his yard led toward Cedar Run, but the service road ran between them and the shelter. Farther along, it joined the county road. Ben looked down at the little hole again, then toward the dark space between the trees. He could no longer hear anything moving.
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