📗 PART 8 – “A Name Meant for Echoes”
He followed her everywhere.
Tripped on his own ears.
Tumbled down the porch steps twice in one morning.
Yipped at the broom like it was a snake come to kill them both.
Agnes hadn’t meant to laugh—
but she did.
Out loud.
Hand on her ribs, eyes misty with surprise.
“Lord, what are you?” she chuckled.
“A tumbleweed with legs?”
The puppy wagged his entire body in response.
His tail was short and frantic, like a broken metronome.
He slept in Bear’s spot by the fire.
A little uneasy at first—like he knew the place had belonged to someone else.
But by the second night, he curled in tighter, let out a sigh, and didn’t stir till dawn.
Agnes placed a folded towel beneath him.
She didn’t bring out Bear’s blanket.
Not yet.
Some things had to settle on their own.
The card that came with him hadn’t been signed.
Just three words, scribbled in pencil:
“For what he did.”
She knew who it was from.
Molly.
June.
Maybe even their parents.
She didn’t need names.
Just the thought was enough.
She tried calling him “Hank” once.
Didn’t suit him.
Tried “Buck.”
Too proud.
Then “Junior.”
Too small.
Nothing stuck.
Until one morning, while brushing the ashes from the hearth, she caught herself whispering:
“Bear… Bear… Echo.”
The pup tilted his head.
One ear flopped over like a page folding shut.
She tried again.
“Echo.”
He barked—just once. Sharp. Confident.
Then ran to her feet like he’d been waiting all along.
That afternoon, she carved his name into the inside lip of Bear’s old food bowl.
Didn’t erase the past.
Just added to it.
“Two dogs. One story,” she said softly.
“You’ll never be him. But maybe that’s not the point.”
She set the bowl down. Echo stared at it, sniffed it twice, then began to eat like he’d never known hunger.
That evening, Echo sat at the foot of her chair.
The fire was warm. The radio played a slow fiddle tune.
Agnes reached over and scratched behind his ears.
“He was a good dog,” she said aloud.
“Best I ever knew.”
Echo didn’t answer.
But his tail thumped the floor—once, twice.
And in the stillness of the room,
Agnes could almost hear Bear’s breath, mingling with the crackle of the fire.
The past wasn’t gone.
It had simply shifted shape.
Now it wore a new coat, had smaller paws, and stumbled over its own shadow.
But it was here.