📦 Part 7: The Soup, the Song, and the Slower Steps
The next morning came wrapped in frost. The world wore a hush, like the town itself was holding its breath to watch how we would begin again.
Murphy didn’t rise when I opened the door.
He blinked slowly, then tucked his nose under his paw and gave a soft sigh.
I knelt beside him, rubbing his back. “We can skip today, old boy.”
But he stirred. Labored, yes—but willing. He stood slowly, each motion deliberate. And when I pulled on my coat, he stepped toward the door.
Nora arrived not long after, holding a thermos and a folded blanket under one arm.
“Is he okay?” she asked gently.
“He’s tired. But he still chooses to walk.”
She placed the thermos in my satchel. “Chicken soup. Just in case.”
We didn’t take a route today.
We took a meander.
Murphy’s pace was barely above a crawl, but he led—nose forward, tail steady, the rhythm of a fading drumbeat.
We made our way to an old alley behind the elementary school—one not paved in years, where weeds pushed through cracks and time forgot the need for order.
“This was where I met Jimmy Dale,” I said.
“Friend of yours?”
“More like a thorn with a heart of gold. Ran the janitor crew at the school. Used to sneak Murphy slices of bologna through the fence.”
“Was he allowed to do that?”
“Not at all. But he said rules didn’t apply to dogs with eyes that wise.”
Nora chuckled.
Murphy paused near a rusted gate and sat.
I pulled a small photo from my coat pocket. Jimmy and me in front of the school gym, years back. Murphy’s ears were still floppy then.
I tucked the photo into the chain link.
“Jimmy passed in 2020. Heart failure,” I said.
“He sounds like someone who lived on his own terms,” Nora said.
“He did,” I said. “And died with no regrets.”
We made our way toward the town library next.
Murphy’s legs trembled more now. At one point, I scooped him into my arms and carried him half a block. He didn’t protest. Just rested his head against my chest.
Nora walked beside us in silence, her eyes glistening.
At the library, we sat on the low wall outside the entrance. A group of children was leaving storytime, their voices loud and bright like birds at dawn.
One little girl with braids skipped over to Murphy, who now lay beside me, barely moving.
“Is he sick?” she asked softly.
“He’s just old,” I said.
She knelt beside him. “He’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
She kissed her hand and touched it gently to his paw, then skipped away without waiting for a reply.
Nora exhaled shakily.
“She saw him,” she said. “The way you do.”
We stayed there a long while. I opened the thermos and poured the soup into a cup. It smelled like home—chicken, celery, something herbal Evelyn used to add but never named.
We shared it between us, spooning slowly as Murphy napped.
And then something stirred the air—a sound.
A harmonica.
Faint, off-key, but pure.
From around the corner came an old man in a denim jacket, playing “You Are My Sunshine.” He walked with a limp, but his smile was bright.
“That’s Henry Doyle,” I said. “Hasn’t played in years. Not since his wife passed.”
Nora waved him over.
He finished the tune and tucked the harmonica into his pocket.
“Been watchin’ you two walk all week,” he said. “I figured… well, figured maybe the dog could use a song.”
Murphy’s ears twitched.
“Play it again?” I asked.
Henry nodded. And this time, as he played, Murphy raised his head.
Not much. But enough.
The moment wrapped around us, as if music could pull the past forward and hold it, if only for a breath.
When the tune ended, Henry patted Murphy’s head and said, “Good boy. You done more good in this town than most mayors.”
Then he walked on.
We sat in silence again.
After a while, I opened my journal:
“Day five. A block and a half. A bologna memory. A child’s kiss. A harmonica hymn. Murphy still walks, even if only in spirit.”
I closed the book.
“Tomorrow,” Nora said, “let’s not go far.”
I nodded.
“Let’s just sit where he wants to sit.”
“Yes.”
We returned home with the sun low behind us, our shadows longer than the path we’d taken.
Murphy collapsed on the porch, eyes closing before I’d even unlocked the door.
Nora stood beside him, the blanket still folded under her arm.
Then she knelt, tucked it gently around him, and whispered something I didn’t catch.
I didn’t ask.
Some things are meant to stay between kindred hearts.
And as I looked at the dog who had once raced ahead and now lay still in warmth and memory, I knew:
Even slowing down could be sacred.
📦 Part 8: The Day Without Distance
We didn’t walk today.
Not because we couldn’t—but because Murphy didn’t ask to.
When I opened the door that morning, he didn’t stir. His breathing was soft, shallow, steady like the tick of a distant clock. He lay on the same braided rug by the woodstove, wrapped in the blanket Nora had brought, the red one stitched with little blue stars.
I sat beside him and brushed the tufts of white fur around his ears. His eyes fluttered open just enough to meet mine. And in them, I saw peace—not the kind that arrives at the end, but the kind that says: This moment is enough.
A knock at the door. Then it opened gently.
Nora stepped in, holding two mugs of tea and a paper bag folded at the top.
“He’s resting?” she asked.
I nodded. “No miles today.”
“That’s okay,” she whispered, kneeling beside him. “He’s already walked enough for a lifetime.”
We didn’t talk much that morning.
We just sat.
She placed the bag on the table. It held two biscuits and a worn paperback copy of Old Yeller. “Found it at the secondhand store yesterday,” she said. “I thought maybe… you’d want to read something out loud.”
I stared at the book for a long while before picking it up.
I read the first few pages, voice low and slow, the way I used to read to my kids before they grew up and stopped needing bedtime stories. Murphy didn’t move, but his ears flicked slightly with the cadence.
Nora made a small fire in the woodstove.
We shared the biscuits with butter and honey. And when the sunlight fell across the floor just right, Murphy stretched his legs, sighed, and went back to dreaming.
“He’s listening,” she said, eyes never leaving him.
“He’s remembering,” I said.
At midday, I opened my journal—not to record distance, but to preserve the stillness.
“Day six. No miles walked. But hearts moved. We sat with the sacred silence, and Murphy breathed in peace.”
Afterward, Nora brought out a tin of old buttons she’d found in a drawer in her new house. “I don’t sew,” she said, “but I couldn’t throw them away. They remind me of my grandmother.”
We sorted them on the table—tiny plastic flowers, worn brass circles, even a mother-of-pearl one shaped like a star.
Murphy lifted his head briefly, as if to say you’re making something from the old again, then tucked it back down.
The hours passed without notice.
Nora told me more about her life in Chicago—about the high-rise apartment, the noise, the glass and metal. About how her husband left, and how the silence that followed was worse than the shouting.
“This town is the first place I’ve slept through the night in years,” she said.
I nodded. “Sometimes the quiet heals.”
Outside, the leaves scattered in the wind.
I brought out Evelyn’s old record player and played a scratched LP of Nat King Cole. Unforgettable drifted through the house like a gentle ghost.
We didn’t need to speak. The music said enough.
Late in the afternoon, Murphy stirred and stood. Shaky, but upright. He walked to the door and looked at me.
“You sure?” I asked.
He gave one slow wag.
Nora held the door open.
We didn’t take the street.
We just walked to the tree in the front yard—the oak where Evelyn used to hang wind chimes and prayer ribbons.
Murphy sniffed the base, circled once, then lay down in a patch of sun.
We pulled up two chairs and sat beside him, the three of us facing the quiet street.
The town moved around us—bikes on sidewalks, a mail truck down the lane, leaves tumbling like memories.
And for the first time in many days, I didn’t think about the past or the end.
I thought only of that exact moment—the warmth of the sun, the weight of peace, the dog at my feet, and the friend beside me.
At twilight, Murphy let out a deep, contented breath.
I knew what it meant.
Not goodbye.
Just thank you.
