And then there was the time when Buster didn’t come home.

I reckoned something was wrong as soon as I saw the front door of the house ajar. The door is always supposed to be closed. Always. We’ve been hearing about it a dozen times a day for the past 10 years. Since we moved into the 4 bedrooms place on Black Pond Drive.

“Don’t leave the door open, or the dog will make a run for it.”

And here we were now, the door open, the wind rushing in, and Buster nowhere in sight.

Millie looked distressed. Which was odd because she usually doesn’t care too much about Buster. “To each his own”, she has a habit of saying adamantly, going upstairs or in any other room whenever Buster is too loud or excited or both. Millie. My sweet sweet Millie. I swear to god I couldn’t handle this house if it wasn’t for her. Calm, supporting, soothing Millie. Lying down in bed with her at night is probably the best part of the day. And it has been for the last 10 years.

So Millie, my sweetheart, the love of my life, was concerned by Buster’s disappearance and voiced it extensively. Because it smelled like snow was coming. See, in Akron, Ohio, the polar vortex hit us pretty hard last year, and, as is usual in the end of November, we were waiting for the first heavy snow of the season. We’re used to that down here, the winter, the blizzards, the treacherous freezing rains and the whiteouts. It comes with the scenery, they say. But last year changed everything for Millie. During those 3 months of glacial weather, she lost a friend (namely Bianca, from down the street, who went missing during one of the most violent blizzards, and was found a few hours later, frozen to death, sitting at the bus stop on the corner of Copley and Sunnyacres) and now tended to get jittery as soon as the winds coming down from the Hudson Bay, picking up speed over Ontario and swooping over Lake Huron brought the temperature down to 32°F.

So to try and ease Millie’s mind (I knew she wouldn’t calm down until we had found Buster and brought him safely back to the house), I went to the porch and started calling him. From where I stood, I could see a neighbour or two getting up from their dinner table to peer through their blinds or from behind a curtain, just to take a look at what was causing all the racket. Nobody would come out though. Nobody would ask if something was the matter, or if any help was needed. The neighbours didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with us. I partly blame it on Buster. People around here are pretty decent, but Buster kind of stripped the decency off of everyone as soon as the occasional howling began. That, and the permanent growling, baring half of his glistening teeth to everyone who came close. Everyone but us. I always thought they’d change their mind if only they could see him at home, playful, in constant search of affection. Just a great pal. Yeah. That’s what Buster was. Buster was our best pal.

I didn’t like the sound of that. Talking about Buster in the past tense. So I stood a bit longer on the porch, shouting his name louder and louder, half-expecting, each time, that he’d come running up the street to me. At some point I stopped — my throat was getting raw — and I went around the backyard looking, searching, cocking my ear from time to time, listening in the crisp cold.

Then the snow began falling. Like really falling. Down, hard, muffling everything, everyone and everywhere in its tumble. It had only been a few minutes, and already the branches of the birch overhead were heavy with the white fluff. As the world around me became silent, I realized that night, too, was falling fast. I went back around the house, and found Millie on the porch, a worried look on her face.

“You didn’t find him, did you?”

I glanced at my side, my eyes pointing to the presence of nothing there, but kept the sarcasm to myself. Millie didn’t look like she was in the mood for jokes.

“No,” I finally answered “and with the snow and the night coming, I don’t think there’s much left to do but wait.”

Millie cast her eyes to the driveway, the house on the other side of the street and the woods behind, and then, just like that, we couldn’t see them anymore. A heavy white blanket had fallen over everything.

“Do you think he can make it through the night outside?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. He’s a hardy boy our Buster. I’m sure he’ll find shelter somewhere and turn back up here in the morning.”

“That’s what we said about Bianca last year.”

“He’s not going to freeze to death Millie, come on now.”

I did my best to try and sound confident.

We went back inside and settled on the living room sofa, waiting, our limbs entangled, trying to act like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Winston?” called Millie after a while. “What’s going to happen if we don’t find him?”

“We’ll get a new one.” I answered.

Millie raised her head and threw me an angry look. She was not amused.

“I was kidding. Honey, sweetheart, I was kidding!”

She settled back next to me.

“I don’t know what we’ll do baby. I really don’t…”

And I really didn’t.

I have no idea how long we stood there in silence, trying to make out a sound, a whisper, anything, from the cotton echo of the world outside. Then, suddenly, came the rumbling of an engine, the jingling of chains and the crumpling of snow crushed under a tire. We went to the window as the beam of the car’s headlights teared through the white cloak of what had turned into a snowstorm and hit the house. A few seconds later, Mary entered, brushing the white flakes off of her parka. She closed the door behind her and stopped. Something was wrong. Something was missing. Millie nudged me.

“Go on, tell her. Get it over with. Tell her we lost Buster.”

But I didn’t say anything. Mary was already walking to the dining table where stood a piece of paper. Before she picked it up, she shot a glance at the closet in the entrance, its door open, with half the coats and shoes missing from it. She finally grabbed the paper, read what was written on it, and brought her hand to her mouth. We didn’t move an inch. She was staring at something on the wall. We looked in that direction, and when we realized there was nothing there, we turned our eyes back to her. The hand holding the note slowly fell to her side. She then let go of it, and the folded paper floated peacefully to the floor, oblivious to the life-shattering news it sported. Then Mary stumbled down to the hardwood, shaking, and started to cry.

We stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say. Then Millie gave me a sad look and went to her. Sensing her presence, Mary sat down and let Millie slide on her lap. I approached and lay my head next to Millie. Mary let a smile peek out behind her teary eyes and began stroking the top of my head.

“Looks like it’s only us three from now on, guys… Mike has left. He’s not coming back.”

I looked at Millie, fearing the news would upset her. But she seemed to have made her peace with the situation. At least Mary was here. We weren’t alone. She’d take good care of us. We were going to be alright. If I could, I might even have built up the courage to ask her why she kept insisting on calling him “Mike” when Millie and I had been calling him Buster for as long as we remembered. It seemed only fitting that we should be the ones naming him, seeing as he was the one that had named us. But I knew the only thing Mary would hear would be a bark, and from the look of her, I didn’t feel like barking was appropriate. So I just stood there, my head on her lap, Millie in her arms, sitting on the hardwood floor of the dining room, with the snow falling outside and encasing us in the moment we would all remember as the night Buster didn’t come home.

And Millie began to purr.