Rina loved the way Omar spoke to the dog. He neither fussed over it nor pulled it along; he stopped and said they had time. They met in the park after a literary evening both had attended without speaking. The dog approached her bench. Omar said it did not usually approach strangers. Rina liked the notion that, beyond any reasonable explanation, the animal seemed to have chosen her in particular.
Three months later they still talked about that encounter. Rina retold it to friends with a small, happy disbelief. Omar added a detail about the rain or the wet lead. His flat had no dog bowl, but the dog supposedly often stayed with his sister. The arrangement seemed ordinary. She shared responsibility for her mother's cat with her brother and knew an animal's life need not fit inside a single household.
Then a woman arrived in the park whom the dog recognized well before Omar did. It pulled its lead and whined with delight. The woman lifted its front paws, greeting her little old man. She was Omar's sister. She thanked her brother for looking after it while she traveled and told Rina it was lovely finally to meet the reason Omar had suddenly started borrowing her dog. Only then did she notice his expression.
Rina asked no questions in front of her. She waited until they were alone and then requested the story of their first meeting again. Omar admitted noticing her at the literary evening and later seeing her in the park. He wanted to approach her but found it easier with a dog. He had only intended to start a conversation. Everything afterward, he insisted, had been real. Rina asked why he had never allowed her to laugh at that awkward preparation.
She did not mind that he did not own the dog. She minded that every affectionate return to the beginning of their relationship had received another confirmation of a story he knew was false. He had turned coincidence into a little piece of evidence that something was destined for them. For the first time Omar had no detail left to improve his explanation. He suggested beginning again without the dog or excuses. She said they already had a beginning, together with everything he had added to it.
They did not meet for several days. He sent a brief apology without a story about his shyness. Rina read it twice and replied that she needed time. Later she met his sister in the park. The dog approached her as happily as before. She stroked it and laughed when it immediately ran toward another bench. Strangely, that little disappointment was easier to bear when nobody invented a special meaning for it.