And, secretly, it meant one more day before he had to walk down past the strip mall, past the parking lot. Better to spend a few dollars and treat himself gently. There would be plenty of time to face unpleasant memories later, when he had more strength.
As soon as he sat down at his desk and turned on his computer, guilt pressed against him. Eight hundred unread e-mails tracking back to that day. Messages from people he’d worked with for months or years with subject lines like “Third attempt” and “I’m running out of time here.” His morning wove itself out of apologies and lists of deadlines that had already passed. He tried to lose himself in the cost of roofing tiles and the weight tolerances of flooring.
The physical therapist had given him exercises to do throughout his day, gentle stretches that would help to keep the scars from adhering where they shouldn’t, would get him back as much range of motion as possible. It wouldn’t be all it had been, but mostly. Probably. Enough. He had his toes on a thick hardback book to gently stretch the reattached tendon when Michael from bookkeeping popped his head in the office door. Alexander felt a flush of embarrassment that bordered on shame.
“Alexander. You got a minute?”
“Sure,” he said, pushing the book under his desk with a toe. “What’s up?”
“Little thing,” he said, and ducked back out. Alexander took up his cane and followed.
It could have been worse. It could have been the whole staff. Instead, there were just four of them: Michael, Robin from HR, Mr. Garner, and Erin. They didn’t half fill the breakroom, and the little tray of cupcakes, with one frosted letter on each, spelled out WELCOME BACK. Everyone smiled. The sweetness of the cakes went past mere sugar into something artificial and cloying, and Alexander got a cup of the bitter work coffee to make it bearable. Mr. Garner joked about how badly things had fallen behind without him. Robin said it was all just awful without ever quite saying which it she was referring to. Erin stayed politely quiet, a sympathetic look in her eyes saying I warned you they were going to do something. Alexander sat on the metal folding chair, nodding and smiling and trying to be touched and grateful. When it was over, he went back to his office, leaning on the cane more than he had before. He could feel the sugar crash coming and the coffee left him jittery. Probably the coffee.
He tried to catch up on his e-mail, but it was too much. In the end, he composed a little canned response that he could copy into the reply field whenever he needed to: “I’m very sorry for my late response, but I have been out of the office for a medical situation and have only just returned. Please rest assured that my full efforts and attention are on this issue, and I will be back on track shortly.” It wasn’t even a lie, quite. The bland, conventional phrasing would have annoyed him before. He’d hated the insincerity and falseness of etiquette that everyone knew was just etiquette. Now, it felt safe and familiar. Something happened, but it was over now. He was moving on. He was putting it in the past. Everything that had happened could be put in a box marked “medical situation” and the lid nailed shut.
“Hey,” Erin said. “Sorry about that.”
“Well. Can’t say you didn’t warn me.”
“They mean well.”
“I know,” Alexander said. “And I appreciate the thought, it’s just…”
“Yeah.”
She stood, neither in the room nor out, her expression friendly. The moment stretched just a little too long. If Alexander wasn’t looking to talk, it wasn’t an invitation. If he did want to, then it was.
“They didn’t find them,” Alexander said. “The dogs? They never found them.”
Erin stepped into the room, sat in the chair beside Alexander’s desk. Alexander’s fingers hovered over his keyboard, then folded into fists and sank slowly to his lap. A telephone rang in someone else’s office.
“It bothers you,” Erin said.
“I keep thinking about how they’re still out there, you know?” Alexander said. “I think maybe the pound picked them up and put them down and never knew they were the ones. Or maybe they were a pack that was just moving through the city and didn’t really belong here. Or maybe…”
“Or maybe they’re still out there,” Erin said, speaking into the pause. “Maybe they belong to people in the neighborhood. Maybe they’re sleeping on one of your neighbor’s couches.”
“Like that,” Alexander said. He felt his hands shaking a little, but he couldn’t see the tremor. “I don’t know how we do it.”
Erin took a breath and let it out slowly.
“You get people, you get dogs,” Erin said. “Strays, yeah. But pets. People love their pets. Seriously, there are probably more dogs in this town than cars.”
“I know. I’ve had a dog my whole life. At least one. It’s not like I expected them to—”
“That’s not what I meant,” Erin said. “We’ve always lived with predators. Before dogs were dogs, they were wolves. I mean, that was a long-ass time ago, but they were wolves. And no matter what, some of them are always predators.”