Part 6 – The Visit
Monday came with pale skies and the smell of damp leaves. The kind of morning that made old bones ache before the first step hit the floor.
Eleanor stretched slowly. Her knees complained. Her hip resisted. But Grace was already waiting by the door — tail wagging in gentle rhythm, leash hanging from her mouth like a child offering a toy.
“You’re relentless,” Eleanor muttered.
Grace barked softly.
Eleanor chuckled, picked up the leash, and reached for her sweater — Harold’s old navy blue one. The one that still smelled faintly of cedar and something warm.
Outside, the world felt soft.
The trees had begun to green.
That afternoon, Eleanor drove down to the shelter on Pine Hollow Road.
She hadn’t been back since the day she took Grace home. The parking lot was full, the sound of barking filtered through the walls like a distant wave.
Grace stayed in the car. Not because she couldn’t go in — but because Eleanor needed to do this on her own.
The woman at the front desk looked up, surprised. “Mrs… Hughes, right?”
“Yes,” Eleanor replied. “Eleanor is fine.”
The woman smiled. “You adopted Grace. We weren’t sure she’d make it.”
“She made it,” Eleanor said. “And saved me in the process.”
The woman leaned in. “I remember now. You wore Harold’s coat.”
Eleanor blinked. “How’d you know his name?”
“It was stitched on the collar tag.”
Of course. She’d forgotten that.
She walked through the kennels.
So many eyes — some pleading, some wary, a few resigned.
She stopped in front of a small black mutt with a crooked paw and one blue eye. He didn’t bark. Just stared.
Something in her stirred.
Not a call to take him — she didn’t have the room or strength for another.
But a call to help.
To not forget what it felt like to be needed.
Back at the front desk, she left her number.
“If you ever need someone to sit with the sick ones… the ones who aren’t going to be adopted… I could just sit, that’s all. Be with them.”
The woman’s eyes softened. “We’d love that.”
Eleanor nodded.
Then she stepped back into the sun, where Grace was waiting.
They stopped by George’s on the way home.
She hadn’t planned to.
But something told her he’d be out on the porch.
He was.
Holding a cigar he wasn’t supposed to smoke and talking to a faded photograph on the railing.
“She died in ’91,” he said, when Eleanor sat beside him. “I talk to her anyway.”
“That’s not crazy,” Eleanor said.
“I know.” He looked at Grace. “She listens better than I ever did.”
“Most do,” Eleanor smiled.
George reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a yellowed envelope.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said. “Was going through old boxes. Thought maybe you’d understand.”
Eleanor opened it.
Inside was a photograph of a young George in uniform, kneeling beside a German Shepherd.
“Her name was Lucky,” he said. “She got me through things I don’t talk about.”
Eleanor stared at the picture a long time.
Then she touched the edge and whispered, “Thank you.”
That night, Grace climbed onto the bed without prompting.
Eleanor didn’t stop her.
The dog laid her head across Eleanor’s feet and exhaled so deeply it felt like a prayer.
The moonlight slanted across the floor.
Outside, the wind chime stirred again.
No storm this time. Just wind.
And memory.
And something like peace.
In the quiet, Eleanor whispered a thought she’d never dared speak:
“I’m not done yet.”
Grace, half-asleep, wagged her tail once.
And Eleanor smiled.
