The step step step coming from the hallway was unmistakable. After 3 long months, they would be together again 

He had not digested well the long time they had spent away from each other. There was nothing suspicious on the day she departed. They followed the same daily routine. The awakening coffee smell and the bright light coming from the still half closed window were foretokening another sunny day. From the bed, he was sure it would just be another lazy day together while waiting for the sluggish forty minutes of hair drying and its grating noise to come to an end.

They would have the entire house only for them, she would let the hours go without caring about changing her pajamas. He would absorb each loving gesture and the love coming from her eyes. He surely loved those lazy days and the routine was a way to prove they were a perfect match. No one understood she better than him. No wonder he was the only one with her in the last time she cried locked in the closet. There was no need to say something, he was just there making sure she knew she was not alone.

Two open bags on the bedroom’s floor were the first symptom that something odd was about to happen. He had not realized yet, but while he was getting ready for another ordinary day she was on the telephone settling the last details of her trip. As soon as he came in the bedroom the bags on the floor and the clothes laying on the bed brought him memories of not so happy days.

He was still haunted by the time she moved to another country and the sad and slow days of loneliness. The memories of the uncomfortable airplane travel made his stomach sick and he vomited. Covertly, of course. He did not want to show the jitters and he was still holding tight to the hope that, this time, they would go together… they did not.

The following days were long and atypical. Surely it was still the same house but it was not the same smell. There was still there the same coffee and the same sunlight, but without her, it all was meaningless. He tried everything he could to change his routine and get away of those painful memories. He tried dating different people, eating new cuisine styles, different ways to go to the same places but the result of it all was several visits to the doctor trying to explain that the bad symptoms he had were coming from that part of us that no medicine can fix.

That day began like many others after the fateful departure. He woke up before the sunrise, woke sleepy through the house, tried to eat something and after unsuccessfully trying again to fill that empty space in his heart he went back to his bed.

The short corridor between the living room and the bedroom looked ten times longer now, and each step was full of bitter memories, after all, that bedroom that for many nights was theirs now was only his.

But not today. Today would not be a lonely day! His heart almost exploded when he got it. Thanks to his amazing hearing he could feel something different was happening. The step step step coming from the hallway was unmistakable. In one big jump, he took off his four paws off the ground and on an almost inexplicable speed flew to the front door of the house. That smell… he had no questions about it… After 3 long months, they would be together again!