The Friend

by Sigrid Nunez

Our apartment was in a dicey neighborhood, but so long as Beau was behind it we didn’t always bother to lock the door. I would take him with me to a friend’s place two miles away, stay until one or two in the morning, then walk back home along dark and empty streets. Beau knew about the potential danger, you could see it in his tension, his hypervigilance; he was like a fur soldier; he was cocked, like a soldier’s gun. More than once he terrified the wits out of some guy loitering on a corner, or in a building doorway. (I should say that few people I knew living in that part of town in those years had not been the victim of a mugging, or a burglary, or worse.) There was something undeniably thrilling about Beau’s rumbling barks and growls, the stance he took between me and whatever he saw as a threat (which included any strange man who so much as looked at me), the knowledge that he would defend me—to the death if he had to. It was all part of why I loved him. Also, back then, I liked the way we attracted attention. But things are different now. The city has calmed down, the streets are safe, and I don’t walk around late at night anymore anyway. At one or two in the morning I am asleep. I don’t need protection. I don’t need a badass dog to defend me. I don’t want Apollo ever to feel that he has to bark or growl at anyone. I don’t want him to worry. I don’t want him to be anxious. I want him to feel that we are both perfectly safe, no matter where we go. I don’t want him to...