Making Room
The dog noticed people before they noticed her.
Not in a vigilant way. Not guarding, not searching. Just aware. Its head would turn, its pace would ease, and its leash would slacken as though attention had weight.
He liked that. Being near something alive without having to do anything about it.
They walked most mornings along the same streets — pavements that carried sound lightly: a bus somewhere, a shutter lifting, the low hum of coffee shops opening.
The dog moved beside him without pulling. It didn’t perform. It didn’t ask.
At the first corner, a woman slowed.
She hesitated, as if waiting to see whether she was being allowed.
“Is she friendly?”
“Yes.”
The dog stepped toward her, not eagerly, just changing direction the way water does when something is placed in its path. When it reached her, she leaned — lightly, almost absently — against the woman’s leg.
The woman let out a breath.
“Well,” she said.
Her hand hovered, then rested on the dog’s back. Someone behind her cleared their throat. She glanced back, then let her hand remain where it was a moment longer.
She smiled at the dog before she smiled at him.
“Thank you,” she said, though he hadn’t done anything.
She moved on.
He didn’t start walking again until she had gone.
A car passed. The dog stood where it was, then turned back toward him. The leash hung loose between them. He cleared his throat, though nothing was caught in it, and they went on.
Outside a narrow shop, a man stood half inside the doorway, one hand on the frame as if he had paused mid-decision.
The dog’s ear flicked.
The man watched them approach, not wary, just measuring.
“That one yours?”
“Yes.”
The man nodded. He didn’t step aside.
The dog stopped beside him and leaned — not toward his hand, not toward his voice, just lightly against his hip, as if testing whether the space would hold.
The man blinked.
“Well,” he said.
He shifted his weight.
“Had one,” he added after a moment. “Lost him.” A pause. “The dog.”
A door bell rang behind them as someone came out. The man’s fingers tightened once on the doorframe, then eased.
“They remember,” he said.
The leash hand adjusted, though it didn’t need to.
“Yes.”
The dog stepped back on its own. The contact ended. The man nodded — not goodbye exactly — and went inside. The bell sounded again.
They continued walking.
At the next corner, the signal ticked.
She saw them before they saw her.
“Please keep your dog away from me.”
Her voice wasn’t sharp. Just certain.
He stopped.
The dog stood beside him, looking at her as if she’d spoken in a language it didn’t know yet but was willing to learn.
“That’s fine,” he said.
She nodded once.
They stood like that a moment — three people, though only two were human.
Then she crouched.
Slowly she held out the back of her hand. The dog leaned.
Not quickly. Not eagerly. Just as it always did — as if gravity had shifted slightly in her direction.
Her hand came to rest against the dog’s neck. A bus hissed somewhere nearby. She didn’t look up.
“Oh,” she said.
She stayed there a little longer than she needed to. When she rose, she brushed her palms together, though nothing clung to them.
“Thank you,” she said, not meeting his eyes this time.
She walked away.
He realized he’d stopped walking. He stayed where he was another moment, looking at the space she’d been in, then down.
The dog leaned lightly against his leg.
He rested his shoulder against the post beside him.
The signal changed somewhere behind them.
They stood that way a moment longer.
The leash slackened again.