Bojan took over the morning walks while his wife Milena prepared for her final licensing examination. Their dog Roko was ten and had habits firm enough to make every outing last almost the same time. On the third morning, however, he pulled toward a street Bojan never used. He stopped at a green door and sat wagging his tail as though outside his own home.
A man behind the door called the dog by name. When he opened it, he looked surprised to see Bojan. He said he knew Roko from the park. The dog was already trying to push his head between the man's knees. Bojan pulled him back, thanked the man politely, and continued walking. He did not know what to conclude from a dog knowing somebody better than he did.
At home he mentioned the street. Milena said she had never been there. Then she added that a friend sometimes walked Roko. Bojan knew the friend had been living in another city for months. He did not say so immediately. He watched Milena move books around the table and felt another conversation suddenly exist between them, the one she was trying to postpone.
That evening he asked directly who lived behind the green door. Milena first asked to talk after her examination. He said he could wait for a longer conversation but not another untrue sentence. She admitted a man lived there whom she had been seeing during Bojan's business trips. The affair, she said, had ended a month earlier. The dog was the only one who had not received a new explanation of the schedule.
Bojan went to stay with a friend and left Roko in the familiar apartment. He missed the dog so much he became angry with himself: his marriage was collapsing, and he thought about paws in the hallway. His friend said loss did not have to follow an order of importance. The next day he arranged a time with Milena to collect Roko without incidental arguments at the door.
Later they talked many times. Milena passed her examination, but Bojan could not join the celebration. That hurt her, while for him it was the first time he did not soften his own pain to preserve her mood. They decided to live apart until they could see whether any wish to continue existed beyond fear of change.
One morning Roko pulled toward the green door again. Bojan paused, then calmly changed direction. The dog briefly resisted before following the smell of fresh bread from a bakery. Bojan bought him a plain roll and sat on a bench. He did not know where his marriage was heading. That morning it was enough that the walk no longer had to follow somebody else's secret.