I came home late and found the evening had arranged two animals on the steps, as if the house required a pair of witnesses. Their fur carried many bands of color, one after another, but their eyes belonged to no color at all. Behind them the door looked clean and considerate; it promised nothing and kept its promise.
I told them I lived here. They listened with the deep patience of things that have heard many explanations and seen none of them change the weather. One tail moved like a slow metronome for waiting. The other lay across the step, dividing arrival from return. Between them there was a narrow space, exactly the size of a person who had already agreed.
Neighbors passed and nodded to the animals first. The shutters held their red like mouths that had decided not to speak. From the top stair to the bottom the light thinned, as if the day were being measured in small, necessary refusals. I sat on the lowest step. They allowed this. Allowance is a soft form of denial.
When the sky became the color of cooled ash, the pair stood, not to let me in, but to keep the door from feeling lonely. Their faces were gentle and unreadable, the way a letter is gentle and unreadable before it is opened. I waited until the porch swallowed my shadow. Then I understood: some houses are careful with whom they keep, but even more careful with whom they almost keep.
