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-sharingservice, 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.
After all, the idea had been easy. It had come to her already half-formed, only needing her to speak it into existence. A place for them to belong. A place for them to find the community they had always been denied, a place to grow old together when they were the only ones left. It had always been there, percolating at the back of her brain, and it had taken only minor effort to tease forth something she could envision.
Getting others to believe in her vision was proving to be a different challenge entirely.
“I used to fill books like these,” he went on nostalgically. “Like, one a month, easy. I probably still have a box of them somewhere.”
“Why did you stop?”
He took a moment before answering, working through the same chord progression, almost like a lullaby. Fitz had come to the front of his crate, lying with his head and front paws sticking out, facing them. Ainsley grinned down. It was tiny, but it was progress.
“I don’t know, actually. Just got busier, I guess? Joined the band. Different band, not anyone you know. Same kind of music, but those guys were assholes. Bullied the orc down the hall into being friends with me. Signed up for a still life class at the school, tried to join the junior archeologists, but they said I wasn’t twelve or under, which was a terrible excuse. Just wasn’t at home as much.”
“Did they play any of your music in the band?”
At that, Ainsley huffed out that scrape of a laugh. “Definitely not. I tried, but they weren’t interested. Tate was always on me to quit, said they didn’t deserve me and I was keeping myself from finding the group that would. And he was right. Once I told them to fuck themselves, I met Durak like, a week later. And I’ve been playing with them since. Until now.” He narrowed his eyes in Fitz’s direction, one dark eyebrow coming up like a villain.
