Chapter 14 Ris #3
Ris bit her lip, waiting for him to go silent, to close in on himself, but he never did. This was, she realized, possibly the first time he’d spoken Tate’s name out loud since he started therapy. Well, shit. That’s something. And you can’t discount it.
“A curmudgeon and a cat person,” she added, earning another huff of that hard laughter. It was something, and something is better than nothing.
The volunteer at the shelter was surprised when they called. Her voice was guarded as she walked them through what the adoption would entail, relief bleeding into her tone by the end of the call. They picked him up on a Friday.
“It will be easiest if you transport him in the kennel you’ve purchased. He’s used to being crated. That way, we can get him in easily, and he can go right to your vehicle.”
Ris raised her eyes to his, in time to watch his mouth open to argue, but the words he wanted to say never came out.
She knew what he was thinking. After all, Ainsley had come from a diorama, too.
They received a packet of information: information on the breed, information on all of the shots he was now up to date with, information on the food he had been fed.
It all seemed rather impersonal, she thought.
The neat manila folder was within her wheelhouse, but the contents within it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the trembling figure inside the crate at the back of the car.
Ris had been steeling herself for noise, for exuberance, for a tiny bundle of fluff that had all of the energy and joy of the orc she had fallen in love with. What they were bringing home was more silence. Silence and fear.
“I didn’t think the crate was a good idea,” Ainsley grunted, lifting the new, larger kennel they’d purchased after returning the puppy-sized model up the last step. “But getting up the stairs without it probably would have been worse. Baby steps, I guess, right?”
They placed his kennel next to the sofa.
Ris optimistically arranged the toys they had purchased near the outside, the blanket they bought to go in the little dog bed at the open mouth of the crate.
Fitz never ventured out, choosing to remain curled up at the back of the kennel, peering out at them, trembling.
He’d still not come out by the time they went to bed that night, ignoring the food bowl Ainsley showed him as he knelt before the crate, his ass in the air.
“Food! C’mon, boy! Aren’t you hungry, Fitz?”
No response came. At length, he placed the bowl at the edge of the kitchen, within view of the crate, the water bowl beside it in its sturdy wooden base, chosen with so much optimism.
Patience. That’s what he needs. It was what she was used to giving by then. This dog would be reshaped by them. Reshaped, and perhaps, reborn into something new. Something less afraid, more willing to trust, to trust being loved. Again, like him.
“This isn’t a puppy,” she murmured after they’d gone to bed, leaving the door open, just in case.
“It’s not,” Ainsley agreed. He found her mouth in the darkness. Ris tightened her hands around his biceps, leaning into the kiss. “But I think it’s better.”
* * *
The first month was quiet in a way that ached.
Every sound made Fitz jump. Open doorways were scary portals to hidden dangers.
Pigeons on the sidewalk might as well have been enemy assassins for the way he shrank back from them, refusing to move any further on the concrete while they remained, and then startling so badly when they were waved away that he shook like a leaf.
He ate only when they left the room, and preferred the safe familiarity of his crate over lounging beside them on the sofa.
It was nothing that they’d planned for. Nothing that they’d envisioned.
She’d been, in equal measure, steeling herself for a dog that would constantly be underfoot and getting into things, and the sight of Ainsley on his back in the middle of their living room, laughing his big, bright laugh as the same small dog crawled over him, playing, fighting, barking, living.
Fitz shook and cowered, and not much else.
The staircase leading to their apartment was a daily exercise.
Ainsley had contrived to hunt down the building’s super, pleading his case and playing on the troll’s sympathies, emphasizing their shared non-human status within the largely human city to curry favor, until he was given the key to the freight elevator at the back of the building, promising it was only temporary.
“You’ve got to get the hang of this, buddy. Otherwise, we’re going to need to move again, and I’ve only just adjusted to having real shelves.”
Ris ginned at his words, her heart swelling with affection. He made it sound so easy. If the dog couldn’t adjust, they would move. The end.
Fitz was taken downstairs for his walk twice a day, cowering behind their legs in the elevator, startling at leaves and skateboards and blowing trash bags, and then they would work on the staircase on the return trip inside.
Ainsley had to get down on his so-called creaky knees each day, placing the dog’s feet, keeping up a constant patter of gentle encouragement.
It took the full month, but by the time the calendar turned and the key was returned to the troll, Fitz was able to make it up to the apartment. Shakily, but on his own.
“I made a copy,” Ainsley snickered, the afternoon he returned from dropping off the elevator key.
“We pay to live here! We have a right to that elevator, and I don’t think he’s ready to go down the steps yet.
What did Shu’la always teach us?” he asked, as Fitz stared up with his huge, shining eyes.
“That’s right! Fuck the man. It’s our key now. ”
She gave up the pottery drop-in and finally quit the Cambric Creek book club.
She had practiced yoga on her own for years before and reminded herself she could do so again.
Ainsley told the band he was taking a sabbatical.
Quit the balalaika trio. Put in a request for a third work-from-home day, confident that his position as a senior programmer would be enough for approval.
They made adjustments, cut things out, changed appointments, canceled plans.
Ris wasn’t sure if she had been home this much in years, but she couldn’t deny . . . it was nice. Nicer than she’d expected.
“Ivor and his brother will live,” Ainsley announced upon his arrival home, the day he’d quit the trio. “One of their wives is pregnant, turns out, so things would have gone pear-shaped eventually anyway. My balalaika days are done, for now. Tate would be thrilled to hear it, probably.”
Her breath caught, waiting, but Ainsley only continued down the hallway, stripping off his work shirt. When he returned a few minutes later in a band tee and joggers, she held her breath and waited again . . . but he only bent to kiss her, squatting down before the kennel to stroke Fitz’s back.
Time and patience. What they all needed, evidently.
Fitz explored the apartment slowly.
First, the living room. Going around the other side of the sofa was like interdimensional space travel, and he crept slowly, guardedly, as if something might jump out at him at any moment.
As long as the doors in the hallway were closed, the hallway itself was deemed safe.
They kept the second bedroom off-limits, if only so that he didn’t knock something over and injure himself, and their own bedroom remained an unexplored cavern.
“This is where we sleep,” Ainsley told him unnecessarily. “And do other adult activities you’re not old enough to understand.”
Fitz only stared from the doorway, refusing to come any closer.
He was mostly fine in the kitchen, although the occasional ice dropping from the inside of the freezer sent him scurrying back to his crate anytime he was in the vicinity when it happened, and if they were there cooking, he preferred to watch from the living room.
“It says here it could be trauma from past food insecurity,” she read from her laptop screen, the evening they discussed Fitz’s continued refusal to eat if they were in the room.
“Or just general anxiety. As long as he’s eating and not food-aggressive, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Do you think maybe he had a fight with other dogs at the track to eat? ”
Ainsley snorted. “I can’t imagine him fighting with his shadow. Maybe that’s the problem, though. He’s used to waiting until it’s his turn.”
Ris looked up from the screen, giving both dog and master a wistful smile. “Probably just one more thing he needs time on, babe.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we have plenty of time, don’t we, buddy?”
They cooked their meals more often, replacing one of their nights out of the house with a recipe channel on a video-sharing service, making their way through the categories week by week.
On the nights he’d normally be out with the band, Ainsley now sat cross-legged on the sofa, his acoustic over his lap and a composition book open on the ottoman.
“I didn’t know you wrote your own music,” she murmured one of those nights, neither wanting to break his concentration nor interrupt the quiet strumming of the guitar.
His grin was soft, finishing the chord progression he was working on before looking up. “I always used to. Especially when I moved here, before I knew anyone. We’ve had this conversation before. Adult friendships—”
“They’re impossible,” she finished for him, nodding her agreement. Didn’t she know it? She had foolishly believed coming up with her grand idea had been the hard part.
Ris could admit now that she was a fool.