Some walks are too good to finish quickly.
Something beside the wall smelled important.
The dog stopped immediately.
Grandpa did not.
This created a brief disagreement involving a leash, one cream trouser leg, and Grandpa’s dignity.
He took two steps backward.
“What?”
The little white dog pushed his nose beneath a cluster of leaves.
Snff. Snff. Snff.
Grandpa waited.
One leaf.
Apparently important.
A second smell followed near the gate.
Then a third beside a flowerpot.
Grandpa looked toward the end of the street.
Home was twelve minutes away.
At the present rate, possibly Thursday.
The Usual Route
Grandpa knew this road well.
Left at the stone wall.
Past the bakery.
Across the narrow lane.
Seven houses after the black lamp.
Home.
The dog knew none of this.
Or knew it and had rejected the itinerary.
At the bakery he stopped because warm bread was escaping through an open window.
Grandpa smelled it too.
Butter.
Yeast.
Something sweet with cinnamon.
The baker was carrying a tray toward the counter.
Grandpa raised two fingers.
The baker raised the tray.
The dog sat.
“No.”
The dog remained sitting.
“Absolutely not.”
The tail began sweeping the pavement.
Grandpa bought one small roll.
For himself.
The dog received a piece roughly the size of a philosophical objection.
The Important Detour
They continued.
Twenty steps later, the dog turned sharply toward a low garden wall.
A dry leaf skittered across the pavement.
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
The dog chased it.
Grandpa followed because the leash had constitutional authority.
Behind the wall grew white daisies, rosemary, and a bush with tiny red berries.
A woman was watering the flowers.
She looked up.
“Well, hello.”
Grandpa touched the brim of his cap.
The dog pushed his nose through the railing.
“Nosy,” Grandpa said.
The woman laughed.
“He remembers my biscuits.”
Grandpa looked down.
The dog looked away.
This was not a denial.
A biscuit appeared.
Then another conversation did.
The weather.
The bakery.
Her leaking kitchen tap.
A grandson who had recently discovered drums.
Grandpa leaned against the wall.
Somewhere behind the houses, a church bell sounded once.
Then twice.
The rosemary smelled sharp in the afternoon warmth.
Eventually Grandpa looked at his watch.
He had been standing there eleven minutes.
The dog was lying down.
Seven Houses Away
They resumed.
Home was now seven houses away.
The dog stopped beneath a tree.
Grandpa stopped too.
Nothing happened.
No biscuit.
No leaf.
No interesting smell that Grandpa could detect.
Just wind moving through branches.
A few yellow leaves turned slowly above them.
One came down and landed on Grandpa’s cap.
He did not notice.
They walked on.
At the fifth house, two children were drawing with chalk on the pavement.
At the fourth, someone was practicing scales on a piano.
At the third, a bicycle bell rang twice.
At the second, the dog stopped again.
Grandpa sighed.
“What now?”
The dog sat.
Grandpa waited.
The dog looked up at him.
That was all.
Grandpa looked toward his blue front gate.
Then at the dog.
Then at the small stone bench beside the road.
He sat.
The dog jumped up beside him.
Neither appeared surprised.
Home
By the time they reached the gate, the walk had taken forty-three minutes.
Grandpa unlocked the door.
The dog went directly to his water bowl and drank noisily.
Lap-lap-lap-lap.
Grandpa hung the leash on its hook.
A yellow leaf fell from his cap onto the floor.
He picked it up.
Looked at it.
Then placed it on the little shelf beside his keys.
The dog watched.
“Don’t start.”
The tail moved once.
That evening Grandpa set his shoes by the door.
The leash was already hanging there.
He checked the weather through the window.
Clear.
He looked down.
The dog was waiting.
“Tomorrow,” Grandpa said, “we take the short route.”
The dog wagged.
Grandpa pointed at him.
“I mean it.”
The dog wagged again.
Grandpa put two biscuits in his jacket pocket.
Apparently negotiations had already begun.
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