Strays

Maria's scissors hovered over Mrs. Chandler's silver hair, her wrists moving with the muscle memory of thirty years behind the salon chair. The old woman sat motionless in the mirror, eyes fixed on something beyond her reflection.

"She always loved it when you styled it," Mrs. Chandler said suddenly. "Sarah, I mean. She said you made her feel like herself again."

Maria's hands faltered. Sarah had been more than a client; she'd been Maria's oldest friend, the one who held her hair back during her divorce, who poured wine on Tuesday nights and said nothing when Maria cried about her empty apartment. Sarah had died two months ago, leaving behind a husband who'd moved on before the funeral ended and a golden retriever who waited by the door.

"I'm sorry about her dog," Maria said, because they were both avoiding saying they were sorry about everything else.

"Buster," Mrs. Chandler corrected. "My daughter's dog now. She can't keep him. The apartment, you know." Her voice thinned. "I was wondering if—"

Maria found herself at Mrs. Chandler's building that evening, a box of Sarah's things in her arms. The dog stood in the doorway, golden coat dull, eyes dark and knowing. He pressed his nose against her palm and didn't flinch when she threaded her fingers through the hair at his neck—hair that felt like Sarah's had, those last weeks in the hospital.

"You're the one," she whispered, and something in her chest cracked open.

The divorce had left her with furniture she didn't want and a silence she couldn't fill. But this dog, this creature who'd lost his person the way she'd lost her friend—that was something she could tend to. She could run her hands through his hair and remember. She could sit with him on the floor and not speak.

They were both strays now, she realized as he followed her to her car. Both of them trying to figure out how to exist in a world that had forgotten they belonged somewhere.