He hadn’t spoken to his brother in 19 years.
Then one rainy morning, he found their childhood TV buried in the attic.
The screen was cracked, the knobs rusted — but he couldn’t throw it away.
He turned the dial and waited.
When the static finally cleared, the past came roaring back.
📖 Part 1 – The Sound of Snow
Harold Dunn crouched beneath the attic beam, dust curling in the cold light as he wrestled the old TV down from the far corner. It was heavier than he remembered. Boxy, black-and-white, rabbit ears bent like broken fingers. The kind they used to sit cross-legged in front of every Saturday morning, a bowl of cereal in one hand and their elbows bumping as they laughed.
Now the attic groaned under decades of silence.
Harold, 67, lived alone in a creaky farmhouse just outside Belfast, Maine. His wife, Marianne, had passed five winters ago. Since then, time had slipped into a gray rhythm — coffee at six, newspaper by seven, quiet by eight. Days were tidy. Predictable. Until the rainstorm two nights ago, when water leaked down through a cracked roof tile and dripped directly onto a cardboard box labeled “Garage Sale or Trash?”
Inside: a pair of roller skates, two broken G.I. Joe figures, and the TV.
He brought it downstairs that same night, wiped off the grime with an old T-shirt, and set it on a wobbly end table in the garage. That’s where he sat now, adjusting the antenna like a surgeon might reset a bone. He didn’t know what he hoped for — maybe just a flicker, a hum, some proof it hadn’t died altogether.
The first time he turned the knob, there was only silence.
The second time, it hissed — faint, but alive.
Harold leaned in, heart ticking fast. Static, yes. A low snowy fuzz. He recognized it instantly, like the sound of an old friend breathing.
“Channel 3,” he murmured.
It used to be their favorite. Bugs Bunny reruns. The Flintstones. But more than that — it was safe. It was the one time in the week when he and Tommy weren’t fighting, weren’t dodging Dad’s belt or Mom’s bitterness, just two boys with bedheads and peanut butter breath, giggling on the floor.
Tommy.
He hadn’t said the name out loud in years.
Not since the argument. Not since Mom’s funeral. Not since they’d stood on either side of the same grave and walked away like strangers.
Harold pushed the knob again. The screen flickered, lines twisting like ghost wires.
Then, just for a second, it sharpened — a burst of grayscale, a pair of cartoon eyes wide in surprise. Then gone again.
His breath caught. He looked around the garage like someone might’ve seen it too.
The next morning, he cleared out the living room.
Not just tidied — restored. He rolled up the modern rug, pushed the recliner to the garage, dug out old boxes from the crawl space. He pulled down the brown-and-orange afghan blanket Marianne had crocheted in ’78. Dusted off the coffee table with the gum still stuck underneath. He even found the battered plaid couch they used to wrestle on, the one with a cigarette burn stitched shut with red thread.
He put it all in place like a museum curator resurrecting 1972.
Then he carried the TV — reverently, carefully — into the room.
When he plugged it in again, the screen sparked, whined, then settled into its familiar snow.
And for a moment, Harold could almost hear it — the sound of laughter, the creak of wood as Tommy shifted beside him, the clink of cereal bowls, the echo of something they’d lost.
He sat cross-legged on the floor.
He turned the dial to Channel 3.
Then the phone rang.
He froze.
No one ever called at this hour.
The phone rang again — harsh, urgent, like something from the past trying to break through.
Harold stood slowly, heart heavy, and reached for the receiver.
“Hello?”
Silence. Then a click. Then nothing.
Only the soft hiss of static behind him.
📖 Part 2 – Milk Crates and Broken Promises
The phone didn’t ring again.
Harold stood there, the receiver still in his hand, eyes drifting back to the glowing TV screen — a dull hum of static that filled the room like fog. It wasn’t much, but it was company.
He set the phone down and shuffled back to the floor. His knees cracked as he knelt. He chuckled softly at the sound — once it was marbles in his pockets, now it was gravel in his bones.
He stared at the TV.
“Come on,” he whispered, as if coaxing it through sheer memory. “One more time. Give me one cartoon. Just one.”
Nothing but snow.
But still, he stayed. Something had shifted. That phone call — or whatever it was — lit a fuse in his chest. Old restlessness. Old regrets.
He pulled out a plastic milk crate from under the coffee table, the same kind Tommy used to sit on when the couch was taken. Inside it now were records, magazines, a crumpled baseball glove. And folded neatly at the bottom — a photo album.
He hadn’t opened it in years.
The spine crackled like dry leaves as he peeled it back. Polaroids. A few square Kodaks. Harold and Tommy on Christmas morning with matching cowboy hats. Tommy holding a frog out in the yard, his grin all teeth and dirt. A rare photo of their father in a flannel shirt, not smiling, but not angry either. And then — their last summer together. 1974. Before Tommy left for college in Ohio.
Before things went wrong.
Harold sighed and ran a calloused thumb across the edge of the photo. That summer, they built a treehouse in the big maple behind the barn. They spent days hauling wood, hammering nails, arguing about who got the top bunk. It wasn’t perfect, but it was theirs.
Then Tommy left, and the letters stopped, and Dad got sick, and everything fell into silence.
Harold blinked hard and closed the album.
He glanced again at the TV. Still just static.
A knock on the door made him jump.
It wasn’t loud. Just two soft raps — like a neighbor with a pie or a kid selling something. Harold shuffled to the door, rubbing the small of his back.
But when he opened it, no one was there.
Just mist.
The yard sloped into fog, thick as soup. The only thing he could see was the outline of the barn and the swing set, still standing after all these years. The same one where Tommy broke his wrist trying to jump off mid-swing.
Harold closed the door.
He turned back toward the living room, but the light was different now. The static had dimmed. The screen buzzed — not louder, but… fuller. More alive. And then — a flash.
Cartoon shapes. Two seconds. Maybe less.
He stepped forward slowly.
“I saw that,” he whispered. “Don’t mess with me.”
He adjusted the antenna. Then again. Then kicked the carpet in frustration.
Nothing.
Until he heard a voice.
Not from the TV. From behind him.
“You really brought it all back, huh?”
Harold spun around.
No one was there.
He stood perfectly still, the room suddenly colder than before. The TV hissed. The photo album lay open again on the floor, a picture of the two boys waving at the camera. A tear had crept its way to the edge of the page.
Harold sat down slowly on the crate.
For the first time in decades, he said the name like it still meant something.
“Tommy.”
The word landed with weight.
He reached for the phone again and stared at it. Then — slowly, awkwardly — he pulled out an old directory from the drawer. His fingers trembled. He didn’t even know if Tommy still lived in Ohio. Didn’t know if the number was still good.
But he turned the pages anyway.
When he found the name, he stared at it for a long time. Thomas E. Dunn. Akron, Ohio.
He picked up the receiver.
Then set it down.
Then picked it up again.
And dialed.
Rings.
One.
Two.
Three—
“Hello?”
Harold froze.
That voice. Older, rougher, but still there underneath.
“…Tommy?”
A long silence.
Then:
“…Harold?”
Neither spoke for a moment.
Then Tommy exhaled — like someone coming up from deep water.
“I saw your number,” he said quietly. “On my caller ID yesterday. I… I didn’t pick up. Didn’t think you’d ever call.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Harold admitted. “But… the TV. The one from the attic. It still works.”
A soft laugh on the other end. “Channel 3?”
“Yeah. Still there.”
Another pause.
Then Tommy said, “You still remember the cereal song?”
Harold smiled despite himself.
“Of course I do. ‘Snap goes the crackle, pop goes the cheer, breakfast with brothers is the best time of year.’”
Both men laughed — small, sad, real.
Then Harold asked the question that had lived behind his ribs for two decades:
“Why’d you stop writing?”
The line went quiet.
Then Tommy’s voice came back low.
“Because I was ashamed.”
Harold leaned forward.
“Of what?”
The answer never came.
Only a soft click.
Then the line went dead.
Only the static remained.
📖 Part 3 – The Treehouse Ghosts
Harold sat with the phone still in his hand long after the line went dead.
He didn’t call back. He didn’t curse or cry or throw anything, though his hands shook just enough to make the milk crate creak beneath him. The only sound in the room was the slow hiss of the television — like a breath held too long.
Outside, the wind picked up. The swing in the yard began to move. Back and forth. Back and forth.
He looked at the TV and whispered, “Still there, huh?”
For a second, he wasn’t sure if he meant the channel… or the ghost.
He turned off the set, stood up, and stretched until his back popped. The house was quiet. But something in it had changed — like old paint peeling just enough to show the wallpaper beneath. The kind you thought was gone for good.
That night, Harold couldn’t sleep.
He walked barefoot through the house, lit only by the glow of the fridge and a faint porch light. He ended up in the garage, hands drifting over the same boxes he’d ignored for years. One marked “Tommy — 1970s” stopped him cold.
He opened it.
Inside were three things: a cracked baseball signed by Carlton Fisk, a rusted Swiss Army knife, and a folder labeled “Treehouse Plans.”
Harold sat down on the cold concrete floor and opened the folder. Inside were drawings — stick-figure blueprints drawn in childish scrawl, full of ladders that led to nowhere and trapdoors too small for anything but raccoons. There were notes, too:
“Don’t tell Dad we stole the nails.”
“Harold gets the top bunk Tuesdays.”
“If you fall, you gotta pay me your Twinkie.”
He smiled. He could almost hear their voices again — Tommy’s faster, louder, always bossing. Harold’s slower, stubborn, always resisting. But they made it work. For one summer, they were brothers. Not rivals. Not regrets.
Just boys building something together.
The next morning, Harold woke up with dirt under his fingernails.
He’d gone outside before dawn and walked through the wet grass to the old tree. The maple was still there — aged, gnarled, but alive. The treehouse was long gone. Just a few rusted nails still sticking out like lost teeth. But standing there, he could see it again.
The rope ladder. The crooked shutters. The way Tommy used to shout, “All clear!” from above.
Harold pressed a hand against the bark.
“I was mad at you,” he whispered.
His voice cracked.
“I thought you left because of me.”
The wind shifted.
Somewhere, a woodpecker tapped. Somewhere, a memory stirred.
When he walked back to the house, he noticed something strange.
The TV was on.
He was sure he’d turned it off the night before — he always did, part of his bedtime routine. But now it buzzed, screen glowing with a soft, unsteady light. Not static this time. Something different.
Lines. Shapes.
A cartoon.
He leaned in. Couldn’t quite make it out, but he heard it — the tinny jingle of an old commercial.
“Saturday fun on Channel 3 — where brothers laugh and cereal’s free!”
Harold sat down hard on the couch.
This wasn’t just nostalgia.
This was something else.
He reached for the photo album again and flipped to the last page. There, tucked behind a loose flap, was a folded paper he hadn’t noticed before.
It was a letter. Dated August 14, 1989.
Dear Harold,
I didn’t know how to say goodbye, so I didn’t. That was wrong. I’m sorry. I should’ve called after Mom died, but by then we were so far apart I didn’t think I had the right. I want to come back someday, if the treehouse is still there. If not… maybe we can build something new.
Love, Tommy
Harold stared at the paper for a long time. Then folded it slowly, carefully, like he was holding something sacred.
He looked at the TV again.
The cartoon had ended. The screen went dark.
But not before a final image appeared — just for a moment.
Two boys on a swing set, one pushing the other higher.
And a line of text below it:
“Channel 3 remembers.”
Harold wiped his eyes.
Then stood up.
He knew what he had to do.
He went to the garage, pulled out the hammer, the toolbox, and the leftover lumber from last winter’s failed porch project. The tree wasn’t what it used to be, but neither was he.
Didn’t matter.
He was going to rebuild the treehouse.
And this time, he wouldn’t build it alone.
📖 Part 4 – A Hammer and an Invitation
The first nail bent sideways.
Harold muttered under his breath and pulled it out with a grunt. His joints didn’t move like they used to. Every step up the ladder sent his knees creaking, and his shoulders protested every time he lifted the hammer.
But he kept going.
One plank at a time.
By noon, he had a frame. Rough. Crooked. But standing. He sat on the middle rung of the ladder and wiped the sweat from his brow with the hem of his flannel shirt. The tree rustled overhead, leaves whispering like an old friend offering encouragement.
He hadn’t built anything in years.
Not since the porch. Not since the fence that rotted faster than he’d expected. Not since Tommy.
That afternoon, Harold walked into town — something he hadn’t done in weeks.
Downtown Belfast was quiet, just a few folks milling about the hardware store and the bakery with its faded blue awning. He stopped at the corner shop for more nails and a new level. The clerk, a kid maybe twenty-five, looked up from his phone as Harold set the items down.
“Building something?” he asked.
“Treehouse,” Harold said. Then added, “Rebuilding, really.”
The kid blinked. “For grandkids?”
Harold hesitated. “For someone I owe a long-overdue Saturday morning.”
He walked out before the kid could ask more questions.
Back home, the second layer of planks came together easier. He remembered things — tricks Tommy had taught him, like how to square corners with just a bit of string and a carpenter’s pencil. He even whistled a little, though it came out more like a wheeze.
When he went inside for the night, the TV was on again.
This time, it showed an old commercial: a boy chasing a dog through a field, both laughing, both timeless.
And a voiceover:
“The best memories never really fade. They’re just waiting for you to turn the dial.”
Harold sat down, eyes wet, lips parting with a chuckle.
“You always were the sappy one,” he whispered.
Then he did something he hadn’t done in 20 years.
He wrote a letter.
Thomas E. Dunn
Akron, OH
Tommy,
You hung up before I could say it — I don’t blame you. I was angry too, for too long. But I found your letter. The one you left in the album. You wanted to come back if the treehouse was still here. Well, it’s not. But I’m building it again. Not perfect, but sturdy enough to sit and remember.
Come home if you want. Come laugh, even if just once.
I’ll be on the swing set at noon this Sunday, like the old days.
– H.
He folded it with care and sealed the envelope, hand trembling slightly as he pressed the stamp into place. He drove to the post office the next morning — first time behind the wheel in weeks — and mailed it without hesitation.
Then he waited.
Three days passed.
He built a ladder.
He painted a sign that read:
“DUNN’S DEN – MEMBERS ONLY.”
Just like they used to call it.
He even found an old transistor radio in the shed and rewired it to play one station that still spun 70s vinyl.
But by Saturday night, there was no reply. No letter. No call. No sign.
Sunday came cloudy and cool.
Harold put on his best flannel. Brushed his thinning hair. Sat on the swing set at noon.
No Tommy.
He waited an hour.
Then another.
He stood to go — heart low but not bitter — when he heard a sound behind him.
Gravel crunching.
A car door closing.
And then — a voice, older, softer, but unmistakably familiar:
“…You still hog the good swing, huh?”
Harold turned.
And there he was.
Tommy. Hair thinner, shoulders stooped, wearing the same crooked smile he had when he was ten and full of bad ideas.
They stared at each other for a long, quiet moment.
Then Harold stepped forward.
And said only what mattered:
“You came back.”
Tommy nodded. “Took me a while. But yeah… I’m here.”
Harold motioned to the treehouse.
“Still a few boards left. Could use a hand.”
Tommy smiled.
“Only if I get Tuesdays on the top bunk.”
📖 Part 5 – Saturdays Rewritten
Tommy’s hands were as worn as Harold’s — maybe more. Thick calluses, faint scars, fingers stiff with time. But they still knew a hammer.
They worked side by side beneath the maple tree, no radio, no small talk at first. Just the creak of wood, the thud of nails, the grunt of effort shared between two men too old for pride and too stubborn for apology.
The sky overhead was pewter gray. No rain, just a breeze sharp enough to rustle leaves like soft applause.
By late afternoon, the platform was complete. A floor. Four walls. An opening for a window they hadn’t built yet.
They stood beneath it, arms crossed, inspecting their work.
“It’s crooked,” Tommy said.
Harold grinned. “So were we.”
Tommy laughed. Not a big one — just enough to mean something.
They carried the folding chairs up into the new-old den and sat for a long time in silence. The tree swayed gently beneath them. Birds flitted through the branches. Somewhere far off, a dog barked once and fell silent again.
Then Tommy pulled something from his coat pocket.
It was a worn cassette tape. The label read: Channel 3 — Saturday Morning Mix.
“I made it in college,” he said. “After we stopped talking. Used to play it when I missed home. When I missed you.”
Harold took the tape like it was a living thing.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I didn’t tell you,” Tommy replied.
They didn’t need to say more. Not yet.
That night, Harold dug out his old cassette player — the one Marianne had insisted on keeping “just in case.” It still worked, if you pressed the play button just right and shoved a paperback underneath the back end to keep it from tilting.
He and Tommy sat in the living room, lights low, couch creaking under their weight. The TV flickered on without being touched. No remote, no button — just that same slow buzz as always.
Tommy stared at it.
“Still works?”
“Channel 3,” Harold said. “Every time.”
They turned to look.
This time, the cartoon was clear.
Tom and Jerry.
The same episode where Jerry hides in a toy train and Tom crashes through a wall of alphabet blocks.
They both chuckled. Then laughed.
Then let themselves fall silent again.
The cartoon ended.
The screen faded to black.
And for the first time in years, neither of them felt alone.
The next morning, they walked to the edge of the backyard where the old tire swing had once hung. The rope had rotted away long ago, but the tire lay in the weeds, half-covered in moss.
Tommy picked it up. “Still got one good swing left.”
“Let’s test that theory before we snap a hip,” Harold muttered.
By midday, it was hanging again — uneven, but familiar. Harold took the first swing. Tommy pushed once, then twice. Just like when they were kids.
By the third swing, Harold was laughing.
“Don’t let go,” Tommy warned.
Harold looked over his shoulder. “You still talk like you’re the older one.”
“I’m taller.”
“You’re balder.”
They laughed again — easier now, like laughter was something you could lose and find again like a dropped marble under the couch.
Later, they sat on the porch drinking lemonade with too much pulp.
Harold looked at his brother.
“You said you were ashamed. Why?”
Tommy turned the glass in his hands.
“Because I left when you needed me. I went off to chase my life while you stayed behind and buried Dad. Took care of Mom. Took care of everything. I ran from it. You didn’t.”
Harold’s face softened.
“I wasn’t mad about that,” he said quietly. “I was mad because I thought I didn’t matter enough for you to stay.”
Tommy shook his head. “You were the only reason I wanted to come back.”
They sat there, two old men in folding chairs, the treehouse behind them, the TV inside flickering like a heartbeat.
Finally, Tommy said:
“Let’s make Saturday breakfast. Like we used to.”
Harold nodded. “You still like peanut butter in your cereal?”
Tommy grinned. “Only if it’s on top of Cocoa Puffs.”
They stood up slowly — not from pain, but from peace.
Inside, the static on Channel 3 was already clearing.
📖 Part 6 – The Cocoa Puffs Pact
Saturday morning broke with the smell of toast and burning peanut butter.
Tommy had insisted on doing breakfast. He rummaged through the cabinets like a raccoon with a purpose, tossing boxes aside until he found a near-expired pack of Cocoa Puffs and a jar of peanut butter with the label peeling off.
Harold watched from the kitchen table, amused. “You always did make a mess just to make something simple.”
Tommy scooped a dollop of peanut butter onto the cereal and poured a splash of milk over it. “Gourmet,” he said proudly, setting the bowl down in front of his brother like it was a sacred offering.
They sat together at the table, legs brushing beneath it like they had when they were boys — though now the table was lower and the knees creaked more than the chairs.
The first bite was awful.
The peanut butter had hardened into clumps, the milk was lukewarm, and the cereal tasted faintly of the pantry.
But they kept eating.
Because taste wasn’t the point.
The ritual was.
“You remember that time Dad caught us watching cartoons before chores?” Tommy said, mouth half-full.
Harold nodded, chuckling. “He pulled the plug out of the wall, nearly took the whole TV with it.”
“He made us haul firewood for three hours.”
“We did it barefoot, just to make a point.”
Tommy snorted. “And Mom was so mad at him, she banned TV for a week. But we snuck into the garage and watched through the window.”
They laughed until their eyes watered.
Then, silence settled in again — comfortable this time.
Tommy reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small velvet pouch. He placed it on the table without a word.
Harold stared at it.
“You kept it?”
Tommy nodded.
Harold opened the pouch.
Inside was a silver ring — their father’s. Worn thin on the edges, the initials “G.D.” still etched inside. Glenn Dunn. A hard man. A broken man. But their father all the same.
“I thought you lost this,” Harold whispered.
Tommy shook his head. “I kept it in my sock drawer. Couldn’t wear it. Couldn’t throw it away.”
Harold held it in his palm.
“I don’t know if I hated him,” he said. “But I never stopped missing the good parts.”
Tommy stared at the table. “Same.”
The ring sat between them like a relic from a world they both survived — separately.
“Keep it,” Harold said softly. “You were the last one he said anything to.”
Tommy met his eyes. “He asked about you, you know. At the hospital.”
Harold blinked. “What?”
“He said he wished he’d built the treehouse with us. That he watched from the window and wished he hadn’t been such a damn fool.”
The words hit Harold like a wave — not crashing, but swelling quietly until he had to put the ring down just to breathe.
He nodded.
Then stood.
“I want to show you something.”
They walked out to the barn, the sun slanting low behind them.
Harold led Tommy inside and pulled open a tarp in the corner. Underneath was something he’d been working on for months before the rainstorm brought the TV back into his life.
An old record player. The same model they’d had in the ‘70s. Rebuilt, polished, oiled. The turntable gleamed.
Tommy whistled. “You fix everything, don’t you?”
“Not everything,” Harold said. “But the things that matter.”
He opened a drawer and pulled out a vinyl record in a cracked sleeve.
Bobby Goldsboro – Watching Scotty Grow.
He placed it on the turntable.
The needle hissed.
Then the soft, warm chords filled the barn like sunshine.
Tommy closed his eyes.
Harold watched him.
No one spoke.
They didn’t have to.
Because some Saturdays don’t need saving — only remembering.
And some brothers, no matter how long they drift, still find their way back when the tune is right and the static clears.
📖 Part 7 – The Things We Bury
The song ended with a soft crackle, like the sigh of something long overdue.
Tommy stood still for a moment, one hand resting on the edge of the workbench. Harold watched him, trying to memorize the moment — the quiet, the posture, the peace. It wasn’t every day that time bent back on itself and gave you a second chance.
“Let’s take a walk,” Tommy said suddenly.
Harold tilted his head. “Where to?”
“The cemetery.”
The word landed with more weight than either of them expected.
The brothers didn’t speak as they drove. The truck rolled through the backroads of Belfast, past sugar maples in early bloom and rusting fences they once climbed over barefoot. The cemetery sat on a hill at the edge of town, the same one where they’d buried their mother thirty years ago. Their father’s stone stood beside hers now, weathered and simple.
Harold hadn’t been back since the funeral.
He thought about turning around more than once, but something in Tommy’s silence kept him moving forward.
They stood side by side in front of the stone:
GLENN DUNN – 1929–1991
MARTHA DUNN – 1930–1988
Together at last. In peace.
Harold let out a long breath.
“He never said goodbye to me,” he muttered.
Tommy’s jaw flexed. “He didn’t know how.”
“I hated him for that.”
“I did too.”
They stood in silence for a while.
A robin landed on the headstone, chirped twice, then flew away.
Harold reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded note. “I wrote something. For him. Years ago.”
He knelt, placed the paper at the base of the stone, and pressed a small rock over it to keep it from blowing away.
Tommy watched, eyes damp but steady.
Then, softly, he asked, “Do you ever think we turned out like him?”
Harold didn’t answer right away.
Then: “Sometimes. When I’m angry. When I don’t say what I should. When I hold on too long.”
Tommy nodded. “Me too.”
“But we came back,” Harold added.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “We did.”
Back at the house, they didn’t go inside right away.
They walked the yard like they used to — past the empty chicken coop, the old swing, the stump where their dog Rusty used to nap in the sun. They stopped at the treehouse and looked up.
Tommy smiled. “Wanna finish it?”
“You mean the window?”
“No,” he said. “The sign.”
They climbed up together. Harold pulled out the wooden plank he’d carved a week ago but never hung.
It read:
DUNN’S DEN – REBUILT 2025
Tommy added a smaller plaque beneath it:
“No girls allowed. Unless they bring cookies.”
They both laughed like boys again.
Then Tommy’s face turned quiet.
“I got diagnosed last year,” he said.
Harold froze. “What kind?”
“Pancreatic.”
Silence.
“I’m stable now,” Tommy said. “But they said it could come back. Might already be creeping back in.”
Harold felt like the floor shifted beneath him. The treehouse suddenly seemed too high, too fragile.
Tommy continued. “That’s why I came back. Not just the TV. Not just the letter. I didn’t want to die without this — without us — being right.”
Harold looked at him. “You’re not dying yet.”
“No,” Tommy agreed. “But I don’t want to wait till I am.”
Harold leaned forward and gripped his brother’s shoulder.
“We still got Saturdays.”
Tommy smiled.
“Then let’s make them count.”
📖 Part 8 – When the Light Turns Warm Again
For the next few weeks, the days fell into rhythm — not the tired kind Harold had grown used to, but something better.
Each morning, the brothers met on the porch with coffee in mismatched mugs. Tommy liked it black, Harold added a dash of powdered creamer that clumped. They didn’t argue about it. They just sipped and listened to the birds.
They repaired the swing set. They raked the yard. They built a birdhouse and nailed it to the side of the barn, laughing when a squirrel claimed it first. They drove into town to buy nails and came back with licorice ropes and a chess set from the thrift store.
At night, they sat in the living room with the old black-and-white TV flickering in the corner. Sometimes it showed cartoons. Sometimes just static. But the static didn’t feel lonely anymore.
One Thursday afternoon, Tommy caught Harold scribbling something in a spiral notebook.
“What are you writing?” he asked.
Harold hesitated. “A list.”
“Of what?”
“Things I forgot to do with you.”
Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Like…what? Start a band?”
Harold smiled, closing the notebook gently. “You’ll see.”
On Saturday morning, Harold pulled a tarp off something parked beside the garage.
It was a tandem bicycle — rusted, bent, the back tire flat, but unmistakably familiar.
“No way,” Tommy said. “That’s the two-seater from high school?”
Harold nodded. “Found it under a stack of hay bales last year. Was gonna toss it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Didn’t feel right.”
They spent the next hour fixing it, patching the tire, oiling the chain, arguing about who was going to steer.
They rode down the gravel road like a couple of fools — Harold in the front, Tommy in the back, both laughing too hard to balance properly. A car passed and honked. They waved like royalty.
When they reached the lake, they collapsed in the grass and stared at the sky.
“You ever think about Marianne?” Tommy asked.
“All the time,” Harold said.
“She was the one who kept us close. After Mom died.”
Harold nodded slowly. “She was the bridge.”
Tommy picked a blade of grass and twirled it. “I never told her I was sorry. For staying away.”
“She forgave you anyway.”
“You sure?”
“She married me, didn’t she?”
Tommy chuckled. “Fair.”
They sat there until the sun dipped low, casting orange streaks across the water.
Tommy turned to his brother.
“I don’t want you to be alone again when I go.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
But they both knew that wasn’t true.
That night, the static returned. Louder than usual. Harold stared at it from the couch, the shadows long across the floor.
Then, slowly, the screen cleared.
It wasn’t a cartoon this time.
It was a home video — fuzzy, black and white — of two boys climbing into a treehouse, one pushing the other up, both laughing. Then a woman’s voice, off camera:
“Smile, boys! That’s it. Say cheese!”
Harold’s hand gripped the edge of the couch.
He didn’t remember this footage. Didn’t know anyone had filmed it. But there it was.
The screen faded again, replaced by a single sentence, typed in blinking letters:
“Don’t wait for goodbye.”
Harold stood.
And walked to the porch.
Tommy was already there, wrapped in a quilt, looking up at the stars.
Harold sat beside him.
Neither said a word.
Because some nights, the quiet says everything.
📖 Part 9 – The Longest Saturday
Sunday came with wind.
It rushed through the maple like it had something to say — scattering leaves across the porch and stirring up dust from the gravel road. Inside, Harold stood in the kitchen making oatmeal the way Marianne used to: thick, with a spoonful of maple syrup and a pinch of salt.
Tommy didn’t come down.
Harold waited. Called his name once. No answer.
He climbed the stairs slowly, each one groaning beneath his weight.
Tommy’s bedroom door was open.
The quilt was folded neatly at the foot of the bed. The cassette tape lay on the pillow, side A facing up.
The bed was empty.
Harold’s chest tightened.
He found Tommy outside, standing at the edge of the field where the grass gave way to a ring of wild pine. He was staring at the treehouse.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Tommy said without turning. “Thought I’d sit up there a while. Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
Tommy looked back, his eyes tired but clear.
“In case I don’t get another Saturday.”
They climbed the ladder together.
Harold noticed how slowly Tommy moved, how carefully he held the rail. But he didn’t offer to help. Not out of pride — out of respect. Brothers knew the difference.
Once they were up, they sat in silence, knees bent, backs resting against the wall they’d nailed together with uneven planks.
The air smelled like pine sap and dust.
Harold reached into his coat and pulled out two wrapped sandwiches — peanut butter and banana, crusts off.
Tommy smiled. “Now that’s a memory.”
They ate in slow bites.
Below them, the swing set swayed in the wind, empty and creaking. A bird landed on the window sill, then fluttered off.
Tommy looked at Harold.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“Anything.”
“When it happens — when I go — can you play the tape? Just once more? On the black-and-white?”
Harold’s throat clenched. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I can do that.”
Tommy nodded. “And… bury me with Dad’s ring. I think he’d want it that way.”
Harold didn’t trust his voice, so he just reached over and gripped his brother’s hand.
It was colder than he remembered.
But steady.
That evening, Harold lit a fire in the living room. Tommy lay on the couch, wrapped in the quilt. They watched The Flintstones on Channel 3, though neither of them laughed much.
The episode ended.
The static returned.
And then — just before Harold clicked the dial — the screen flickered again.
This time it showed something new.
Two boys.
One older, one younger.
Sitting side by side on a swing set, heads tipped back in laughter. The image was grainy, but the joy in it was real.
Harold turned to Tommy.
But he had already fallen asleep.
His chest rose and fell.
Slower.
Then slower still.
Harold sat beside him for hours.
Not out of denial.
Just out of love.
And when the sun finally broke over the trees, casting gold across the wooden floor, Harold whispered the only goodbye that mattered.
“Thanks for coming home.”
📖 Part 10 – Channel 3 Never Fades
The funeral was small.
Just Harold, a few neighbors, and a scattering of strangers who nodded at the name Thomas E. Dunn like they’d once known it, but couldn’t remember why. The sky was clear that morning, too bright for grief, but Harold welcomed the sun on his face.
He placed the cassette tape in the coffin himself.
No music. No eulogy.
Only a single note, folded twice and tucked beneath Tommy’s hands:
“Thanks for not waiting too long.”
Back home, the house was quiet.
But it wasn’t empty.
The swing set moved in the breeze. The treehouse stood tall against the sky, with the sign still nailed proudly to the front:
DUNN’S DEN – REBUILT 2025
No girls allowed (unless they bring cookies).
Harold walked up the ladder slowly. It creaked beneath him, but he trusted it. He sat down on the old cushion, pulled the transistor radio from the shelf, and let the static wash over him.
Then he smiled.
Weeks passed.
Neighbors brought casseroles. Church ladies left flowers. Someone from the local paper called and asked if they could run a story: “Brothers Reunited Through Vintage TV.”
Harold said no. This wasn’t a headline.
It was a promise kept.
One morning in late spring, Harold pulled the black-and-white TV into the backyard.
He set it beneath the tree, next to a lawn chair and a cooler full of orange soda. The same kind they used to sneak out of the garage fridge. He sat down, turned the dial to Channel 3, and waited.
Static.
Then a burst of color.
Not from the TV — from memory.
He could see Tommy on the tire swing. Marianne waving from the porch. Rusty chasing squirrels in the tall grass.
And somewhere, beneath it all, the soft crackle of a Saturday morning just beginning.
Harold leaned back, eyes half-closed, and whispered:
“Still here.”
The screen pulsed once.
Then blinked.
Then, clear as ever:
“Channel 3 remembers.”
💬 Epilogue
Three months later, a boy named Lucas moved into the old farmhouse with his parents. On his first day exploring, he found a treehouse with a sign, a tire swing that worked, and a black-and-white TV stored carefully in the barn beneath a tarp.
That night, he turned the dial.
And smiled.
Because somehow — against all odds —
Channel 3 still worked.
