I’d been turning this over for days. Running through the possibilities at night after William went to bed, staringat myself in the bathroom mirror while I brushed my teeth. Was thisjust standing therebehavior normal? Was William processing something? Was this some new manifestation of the anxiety he’d developed during the months with Craig—a withdrawal, a retreat, some internal world he was building because the external one hadn’t felt safe enough?
His pediatrician had given me the name of a child therapist when we’d first moved here. Just in case. I’d stuck the card to the fridge with a magnet and told myself I’d use it if things didn’t improve.
But thingshadimproved. William was doing better in school, sleeping through the night, talking more. The move to Summit Falls had been great for him, or so I thought.
But this—this fence fixation, this silent vigil in the backyard he’d developed recently—I couldn’t read it. And the things I couldn’t read about my son scared me more than the things I could.
I dried my hands on the dish towel and went out the back door. Quietly. Not sneaking exactly, but wanting to observe before I intervened.
William didn’t hear me. He was too focused on whatever held his attention at the wood in front of him.
I was halfway across the yard, about to call his name, when he crouched down.
His knees hit the grass. He leaned forward, peering at something near the bottom of the fence. Then he straightened, took two steps back, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a pinecone—one of the hundreds that littered our yard from the big ponderosa near the property line—wound up his arm and lobbed it over the fence.
He waited.
His whole body was motionless, eyes locked on a narrow gap at the bottom of the fence. A space where the wooddidn’t quite meet the ground, not far from the slat Ben had repaired. Just wide enough for?—
I jerked slightly as something appeared in the gap. Brown, round, slightly battered. The pinecone. It rolled through from the other side, wobbling across the dirt and coming to rest near William’s feet.
William cackled.
Not laughed. Not giggled.Cackled—a wild, unrestrained sound that I hadn’t heard from him in months. He scooped up the pinecone, scrambled to his feet, and threw it over the fence again. Higher this time, with more arc. He danced backward, his whole body vibrating with anticipation.
A pause. Then the pinecone came back through the gap, faster, like something on the other side had batted it with real enthusiasm.
William shrieked with laughter and threw it again. It came back. He threw it again. It came back faster. He threw two in quick succession, and they both returned, one right after the other, tumbling through the gap like the other player had figured out the rules and was raising the stakes.
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
He’d been playing with Jolly.
The whole time. The days of crouching by the fence, the quiet vigils, the intense focus I’d misread as withdrawal or anxiety—he’d been playing with the dog next door or waiting to see if Jolly was around.
A game invented by a six-year-old and a K9 who weren’t supposed to know each other, conducted in secret through a gap in the cedar, and apparently so absorbing that William had been out here every chance he got.
He’d known about Jolly before I had. Before Ben told us the dog’s name last Saturday. That flicker I’d seen in William’s expression in the confrontation about the fence—it hadn’t been nerves. It had been recognition. And protection.He’d been guarding his secret, afraid that if the adults found out, they’d take it away.
I backed toward the house before he could see me. I slipped through the door, up the stairs, down the hall to my bedroom, where the window faced the backyard at a higher angle.
From up here, I could see over the fence into Ben’s yard.
Jolly was right there. Belly low to the ground, front legs stretched out, rear end up in the air, tail a blur. A pinecone sat between his front paws, and as I watched, William threw another one over. Jolly lunged for it with the unhinged delight of a dog who had discovered the greatest game ever invented. He nosed it toward the gap, pushed it through with his snout, then dropped back into that eager crouch and waited, tail going, body quivering, for the next one.
A trained K9. A police dog who probably did serious, dangerous work for a living. And here he was, on his belly in the dirt, playing fetch through a fence with a first grader.
His tail hadn’t stopped wagging once.
I didn’t know where Ben was or if he was even home right now. I had no idea what he would think of this. Would he even allow Jolly to play? Did that affect his job ability? I didn’t know, and seeing my son laugh again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask.
I watched them for a long time. William was talking to Jolly—I couldn’t hear the words from up here, but I could see his mouth moving, see him crouch down and speak through the gap. The earnest, one-sided conversation of a boy with a dog who couldn’t answer but listened anyway.
My eyes burned. I blinked hard and went downstairs.
I gave them another twenty minutes before I opened the back door.
“William. Time to come in.”
