“It’s ugly,” he told Cooper. Cooper, a sandy brown mutt with alert ears and a white patch under his chin, panted back at him from the doorway as if ugly was a fair price for peace and a yard. Brian had found him three months earlier behind a convenience store and taken him in “for one night.” The dog had never left.
Now it was just the two of them in a run-down little house with peeling paint, squeaky floors, and a backyard bigger than either of them had expected. To Brian, it looked like freedom. By evening, the unpacking was mostly done. The rain had eased to a mist, and the yard beyond the back door lay dark and wet, the flower beds half-drowned and neglected.