Part 5 – “What We Carry”
Harold didn’t set an alarm.
He hadn’t needed one in years. His bones woke him now — each creak and pulse like a whispered reminder that the day was here whether he was ready for it or not.
But this morning, it wasn’t the ache in his back or the tingling in his foot that stirred him. It was the silence.
Jasper hadn’t moved.
Harold rose from the cot in the back room, the cold floor jabbing at his soles like pins through cotton. He limped to the front of the shop, breath catching in his throat as he passed the heater.
The towel was still there. Jasper too.
But he wasn’t sleeping anymore. Not fully.
He was waiting.
The dog’s chest rose and fell in shallow swells. His nose twitched once. The eyes didn’t blink — just followed Harold as he knelt down, one hand already reaching for that soft white fur along Jasper’s shoulder.
“You stayed through the night,” Harold whispered. “That’s more than I deserve.”
Jasper blinked.
A yes.
A maybe.
A final still here.
Harold didn’t open the shop right away. Instead, he brewed black coffee and cut two slices of bread, toasting them until they were crisp enough to crack between his teeth.
He poured some broth into a shallow dish and slid it across the floor beside Jasper. The dog didn’t lift his head, but his nose leaned toward it. A good sign, Harold told himself. A stubborn one.
He took one bite of toast before the dizziness arrived.
It started behind his eyes — a slow dimming, like the power flickering in an old barn. Then the numbness crept into his fingers. His chest tightened.
He stood too quickly.
The plate clattered to the floor.
Jasper moved then — not much, just enough to lift his head and whimper, the sound thin as a whisper. But his eyes were wide. Alert. Focused.
Harold clutched the side of the counter.
“I’m alright,” he said, to Jasper, to himself, to no one.
He fumbled for the cookie tin.
Found the glucose tablets.
Took two.
Sat on the floor beside Jasper and waited — for the tremble to pass, for the air to feel less like molasses, for the shop to stop tilting.
After five minutes, he could feel his toes again.
After ten, he could feel Jasper’s breathing through his shirt.
“You saved me again,” Harold said. “That’s getting to be a habit.”
Around nine, he unlocked the door. Left the sign turned to CLOSED, but let the bell jingle when it opened. Just in case anyone wanted to check.
They did.
Not many — not loud — but they came.
Mrs. Tilda brought warm sweet potatoes wrapped in foil. She said it was for Harold, but she set them near Jasper’s towel like it might coax the dog into a bite.
It didn’t.
But Jasper sniffed. Looked. A tail twitch. The smallest echo of old joy.
Later, young Matthew Norris came by with a paper crane and a drawing of “Mr. Jasper” and “Mr. Harold” sitting on a rainbow.
Harold put it on the counter beside the robin that had fallen days ago.
And by afternoon, the first card came.
It wasn’t in an envelope. Just a folded square of cardstock, the front decorated with pressed violets. Inside was a simple note:
Thank you for teaching us how to stay.
There was no name.
Harold sat down and stared at it for a long time.
By sunset, five more arrived.
One from Ellie at the diner.
One from a widower named Paul who’d lost his German Shepherd during the pandemic.
Three from people Harold had never met.
He placed them all in Jasper’s box — the old shoebox beneath the register that once held bandanas, spare tennis balls, and biscuits from a brand that stopped making them two years ago.
The box was dusty, worn. The lid soft from use.
But now it was full of love.
That night, Harold didn’t light the lamp.
He just lay beside Jasper in the dark.
One hand resting on that warm, familiar flank.
“I don’t know how to say goodbye,” he whispered.
Jasper didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
But his tail brushed once against Harold’s arm.
Not to say goodbye.
But to say: You don’t have to.