“It’s just chicken and rice.”
“After more than a week of delivery food, chicken and rice is a revelation.”
Something warmed in her face. She looked away, toward the back window, and I followed her gaze.
Jolly was at the fence. Same spot, same locked-in posture, head low, ears forward.
I set down my fork. “He’s never done this before. Seven years, and Jolly has never fixated on a fence or a section of yard or anything that wasn’t part of the work. His attention has always been directed, purposeful. This is…” I shook my head.
“You’re worried about him.”
I shrugged. “He’s almost nine. That’s old for a working dog. Belgian Malinois, German shepherds—they start to slow down. And sometimes, before the physical stuff shows up, you see behavioral changes. Fixation on objects. Delayed responses to commands. Repetitive patterns that don’t have a clear trigger.”
“You think something’s wrong with him,” Kayla said quietly.
“I think it’s possible. And the not knowing is the worst part.”
She was watching me, and the expression on her face hadshifted. The concern was still there, but layered under it was something else. A nervousness, a hesitation, like someone standing at the edge of a pool trying to decide whether to jump.
“Ben.” She uncrossed her arms. “I don’t think anything is wrong with Jolly.”
My jaw tightened. I glanced at the window, at Jolly still planted at that fence, every muscle locked on whatever invisible thing held him there, and looked back at her. “Him standing there, staring? I promise you, that’s not normal.”
She read my face. Whatever she saw there made her straighten slightly.
“Just wait. Watch him.”
I turned to the window. Jolly hadn’t moved. I was about to say as much when a pinecone sailed over the top of the fence from the other side and landed in my yard.
Before I could react, Jolly exploded.
He went from stillness to full sprint in a single stride, every trace of the rigid, locked-in dog replaced by something I hadn’t seen from him in weeks—pure, uncomplicated joy. He snatched the pinecone off the ground, spun with it in his mouth, and tore across the yard to the base of the fence where the slats met the ground. He dropped low, nosed it under one of the slats, right next to the one I’d replaced, and pushed it through to the other side.
He backed up. Dropped into a play bow, his whole body vibrating, eyes locked on the gap. Waiting.
A few seconds passed. Then the pinecone came flying back over the fence. Higher this time, with more arc.
Jolly snagged it before it bounced, spun, raced back to the gap, shoved it through. Dropped into the bow again. Waited.
Another pinecone. Over the fence. Then another.
And over the fence, faint but unmistakable, I heard a child laughing.
I turned to Kayla.
She was standing at the window, arms wrapped around herself, watching my face with the kind of careful attention that told me she’d been dreading this moment.
“William and Jolly have been playing together, mostly on days when you’ve had to leave Jolly here for a few hours,” she said. “Through the fence. Pinecones, sticks, whatever they can push through the gaps. It’s been going on since you moved in, I think.” She paused. “William calls him his best friend.”
I looked back at the yard. Jolly was in full play mode now, spinning and crouching and shoving pinecones through the gap with the manic energy of a dog who had forgotten he was a professional. His mouth was open in that wide, panting grin. The same one he wore after a successful send, after a clean find, in every moment when the work lit him up from the inside out.
But this wasn’t work. This was something else. Something he’d chosen for himself.
Not neurological issues. Not age. Not cognitive decline or behavioral deterioration or any of the dozen clinical possibilities I’d been cataloging in the dark hours of too many nights.
Jolly had found a friend. And he’d rather play with a six-year-old through a fence than do anything else in the world.
Something released in my chest. A tightness I’d been carrying so long I’d stopped noticing it, like a fist I’d forgotten I was making. I exhaled and relaxed my shoulders, and for a second, I just stood there and let the relief settle through me.
