Havoc
Her voice is calm. Controlled. The kind of calm you get from being the person who always has to keep it together. She’s beautiful. Dark brown hair pulled back from her beautiful face and eyes I could easily drown in, the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.
She blinks.
Then smiles a little.
“Thank you for taking care of Buddy the other day,” she says. “Dylan wouldn’t stop talking about how nice you were to him.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
Buddy sits on my foot.
She notices.
Her mouth twitches.
“Of course,” she says.
Dylan crouches and hugs the dog. “I tried to keep him inside,” he says. “But Grandpa forgot and left the back door open again.”
That lands.
Not hard.
Just… heavy.
Aspen sighs and looks at me. “He didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” I say.
And I do.
She hesitates, then says, “My husband's grandpa has dementia.”
“I’ve been taking care of him.”
No drama.
No fishing for sympathy.
Just a fact.
“It’s not… safe for him to be alone,” she adds quickly.
“Not usually. But he forgets things. The stove. The doors. Sometimes, where he is. Lately, he’s had a hard time sleeping.
I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow.
Hopefully, they can give him medicine that will slow down his progression. ”
She rubs her face. “His neighbor called me a month ago. Said he hadn’t seen him outside in days, and when he did see him, he looked thin. Confused.”
Dylan stares at the ground.
“So we moved in,” she says. “I’m a nurse. I thought I could handle it.”
She lets out a quiet laugh. “Turns out knowing what to do and having time to do it are two different things.”
That… I understand.
Buddy chooses that moment to walk back to me and sit.
Again.
Aspen notices.
“So,” she says slowly, “I don’t suppose he’s been… too much trouble?”
“He stole a sandwich and claimed a chair,” I say. “But we’ve seen worse.”
She smiles.
A real one this time.
“I can keep him on a leash,” she says. “I promise. I just… I think he gets anxious when grandpa is having a bad day.”
Dylan looks up. “He always stays near good people.”
I look at the kid.
Then at the dog.
Then back at his mom.
“…We can keep an eye on him during the day, whenever he comes into town alone,” I hear myself say. “If that helps.”
She freezes.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re… home a lot.”
That is the understatement of the century.
Her eyes go shiny.
She blinks it away fast.
“That would help more than you know,” she says.
Ten minutes later, Buddy is back in our building with a new water bowl and a very smug expression.
Dylan waves like he’s leaving his best friend at summer camp.
Aspen hesitates.
“Thank you,” she says again. “For being… kind.”
I shrug. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
She smiles at me like she knows I’m lying.
Later, Wolf leans against the wall and says, “So. You’re running a doggy daycare now.”
“It’s temporary,” I say.
Buddy puts his head on my knee.
Wolf grins. “Sure it is.”
And for some reason…
I don’t argue.