Cold.

The cold came early that winter, that winter when I knew with certainty that I was an old dog. No early snow, though. Not like the winter Moon and I had spent in Claremont. But there was plenty of cold. And there were storms that flung sleet and ice out of the clouds, stinging my skin and eyes. I was living at the edge of a town then, my instincts telling me it was time to find a farm for the winter, my old bones protesting at the prospect of the journey. The first of the ice storms came one frigid night, causing school to be closed the next day, which was Halloween. I had learned that children generally enjoy an unexpected day off from school, but the ones I saw in their yards on Halloween morning were not happy.

“No trick-or-treating tonight,” I heard the parents say. “It’s icy, too dangerous to go out.”

I had spent the night in the shelter of an upended wheelbarrow in someone’s backyard. I was dry, but I was so cold I was shaking, and I hadn’t eaten since the morning before. Still, I stayed in my shelter until the next day, when the air warmed and the ice started to melt. I waited until the people who lived in the house with the wheelbarrow had left. Then I walked out of their neighborhood and into some woods.

I traveled for two days and two nights. My limbs felt heavy; they no longer moved with ease. Some days they were stiff, most days they were just plain slow. I was almost always hungry and thirsty; sometimes I was so hungry that I couldn’t even feel the hunger pangs. Hunting had become difficult because my reflexes weren’t what they used to be. I wasn’t fast enough to catch most animals, unless they were unsuspecting. I needed to rely on garbage.

But garbage was easier to find in towns, and I had not forgotten the animal control officers.

One morning I woke up in the gray dawn, shivering in a hollow under an outcropping of rock. I noticed that my hind foot was bleeding. I licked it, then rose unsteadily and set off walking again. I wasn’t sure when I had last eaten, only that I needed to find a farm soon.

But I walked all day and saw no farms. I was in the country, and I saw an isolated house here and there, but not a single farm. I fell asleep that night dreaming of Jean and Hal, of the horse and cows and cats and geese, of the warm barn and the compost heap. When I awoke the next morning, stiff and freezing and famished and thirsty, I set out again. I didn’t bother to stick to the woods. I was too tired. I walked down a country road. When a car or a truck rumbled by, I stepped out of the way, but I didn’t hide.

I traveled this way for two more days, eating an already dead squirrel I found in the road and drinking bad-tasting ditch water. And then the first snow fell.

It began late in the afternoon, just before the winter darkness seeped in. I stopped walking and flopped down on my haunches, out of breath and shivering. I looked around. Only one house was nearby. A long drive led from the road to the side of the house, and a path led from the drive to the front porch. The house was white with black shutters. The yard was tidy. Lights glowed in two of the windows, and good scents came to my nose. I smelled food, and I smelled smoke, which I realized I could see curling out of the chimney.

I turned and walked up the drive, leaving bloody footprints behind me in the snow. When I reached the house I looked behind it and saw a tool shed. I checked the shed and found the door open. I nosed my way inside.

The shed was my shelter for the night. The air inside was cold but dry, and when I peered outside the next morning, I saw that the snow had stopped falling. I tiptoed out of the shed and around to the front of the house. I was sitting underneath a yew bush when a woman stepped onto the porch. She was old. I know the human signs of old age: Her hair was white, her face was wrinkled, and she moved as slowly and stiffly as I did. But her face looked kind, and she smiled as she tossed some birdseed onto the ground, glanced at the brightening sky, then slipped inside again.

As soon as the door had closed, I made my way to the seed. I was eating it — in great big gulps — when I heard the door open again. I ran around to the side of the house. And I heard the woman say, “Oh, my. A dog.”

I hid in the shed until the afternoon, then returned to the birdseed. Not much was left, but I snuffed up what I could find. I was still snuffing and searching through the snow when the door creaked open. I raised my head. And the old woman poked her own head around the door.

“Good afternoon, dog,” she said.

I ran back to the shed. Behind me I could hear the woman calling, “Where are you going? Are you hungry?”

I was hungry. I thought maybe I had never been hungrier in all my life. And so that evening, as I lay in the shed long after the dark had come, I paid attention when I heard a noise from the back of the woman’s house. It sounded like a door opening and closing. I peeked out of the shed. The lights in the house were winking off, and soon the house was bathed only in moonlight. I crept to the stoop by the back door. And there before me were two bowls. One was full of water, the other was full of chicken and gravy and mashed potatoes. I slurped up the food, licked the bowl clean, and drank half the water before returning to the shed.

The next morning I was peeping out of the shed when the back door opened. I froze in place and watched the stoop. The old woman stepped outside and peered at the dishes.

“My, she was hungry,” she said. “Not a crumb left.”

She carried the dishes inside. A few moments later she set them out again. I waited a bit before venturing to the stoop. The water dish had been refilled, and the food dish now contained turkey, cheese, and rice. I gobbled up the food, drank some of the water, and hurried to the shed.

That night I found more food in the dish, and the next morning, too. On the day after that, the woman put food in the dishes in the afternoon as well as in the morning and the evening. On the day after that, I arose early and waited in the shed for breakfast. Sure enough, as I watched, the door opened and the woman stepped outside, gathered up the empty dishes, and soon returned with full ones, which she left on the stoop, closing the door after her.

I was chomping on a piece of steak when the door opened a crack and there was the woman, standing in the doorway. I stiffened, then backed up.

And the woman said, “Oh, now. For heaven’s sake, dog, you must be as old as I am. Why don’t you come inside and warm up?”

But I ran off, leaving several mouthfuls of good steak behind. And I skipped lunch, waiting for darkness before I ate again. I didn’t want to skip breakfast the next day, though (there had been more steak for dinner), and while I was eating the bowl of scrambled eggs and bacon that I found waiting for me — as I stood on a stranger’s stoop in broad daylight — there came the turn of the knob, the click of the door.

I backed away from the food. “Come on, old dog,” the woman said. “Enough of this silliness.”

I retreated in the direction of the shed.

“You know,” the woman continued, “the last thing I need is a dog, but I really think you ought to come inside. You must be freezing.”

I put my tail between my legs and kept walking.

“That shed isn’t very warm,” called the woman. “Not warm at all. If you come inside, you can sit by the fire.”

But I couldn’t do it. I could not go into her house. Not until the morning when the air was so bitterly cold that I couldn’t feel the bottoms of my paws. On that morning, I shivered as I ate the chicken that had been set out. The woman came to the door and watched me. I didn’t run away, just stood over the bowl, shaking and trying to swallow.

“Old dog, for goodness’ sake, you are a mess. I can see your ribs, you’re shivering, and your feet are bleeding. You look like you can barely stand up. Please come inside.” She held the door open for me.

I raised my head. I could feel the warmth from her house. I could smell the wood smoke, and hamburger, good food smells. I looked back at the bowl, down at my feet, my frozen feet. I thought of Marcy and George, of the shouting and swatting and the night in the box. I thought of the Beckers and my dusty bed in the garage. But then I thought of Matthias and Dr. Roth and Rachael.

I stepped through the doorway and into the old woman’s house.