📘 PART 9 – “What We Carry”
The snow began to melt in mid-April.
Not fast. Just enough to leave patches of muddy grass along the fenceline and a sheen of water across the back deck. Bruno no longer slipped on it — David had stapled strips of rubber matting down.
“Not pretty,” David muttered, hammer in hand, “but neither are we.”
Bruno watched from the steps, head tilted slightly, eyes steady. He was moving better now — not fast, not even smoothly — but there was confidence in his gait again. The limp was still there. It always would be.
But David had stopped measuring progress in miles.
These days, three quiet steps meant the world.
Twice a week, they still visited Dr. Vasquez.
The routine had grown familiar: physical therapy, stretching, supplements. Pain meds on colder mornings, glucosamine in the evenings. Bruno knew the staff now. He’d nudge the front desk for a treat before each visit and stand patiently on the scale like a tired boxer stepping into the ring.
On one visit, Dr. Vasquez knelt beside him and ran her hand down his back.
“His spine’s beginning to stiffen,” she said. “It’s age, mostly. And maybe some trauma catching up.”
David nodded. “I figured.”
“He won’t show it. Not much. Dogs like him… they just get quieter.”
David looked down. “How long do you think we’ve got?”
She paused, not clinically — but kindly.
“I don’t know. But it’s not about how long,” she said. “It’s about how good the days are.”
That night, David didn’t sleep.
He lay on the couch with the fire dying low and Bruno curled on the rug nearby. Every few minutes, he heard the soft shift of weight. The dog was restless. Legs twitching, breathing shallow.
David reached down and touched his flank. Warm. Tense.
The next morning, Bruno didn’t eat.
They returned to the vet.
No emergency, no new injury. Just pain — silent, creeping, familiar.
Dr. Vasquez adjusted the meds. She added warm compresses to the shoulder and showed David how to wrap a towel under Bruno’s hips to ease pressure when rising.
“It’ll come in waves,” she said. “On the bad days, he’ll need help standing. On the good ones, he might ask for a walk again.”
David asked, “Will he know?”
“He’ll feel it,” she replied. “But he’ll also feel you. That matters more than we understand.”
David went home and built something new.
A custom ramp, wider and lower than before, leading straight from the back steps to the yard. He padded it with leftover carpet. Painted the wood. Stood back and waited.
Bruno didn’t hesitate.
He stepped onto it, paused halfway, looked up — and wagged his tail.
Not much. Just a flick.
But David felt tears sting behind his eyes.
In the evenings, they changed routine.
No more walks down the road. Now it was sitting by the porch, Bruno’s chin resting on David’s boot while they listened to the wind and watched the clouds roll across the sky.
Sometimes David talked. Sometimes he didn’t.
Bruno was fine with either.
He didn’t need stories.
He just needed to be near the voice that had called him home.
One night, David filled a second bowl — one he’d bought years ago, used once, and shoved into the cupboard when Max left with his wife.
He filled it with warm broth and bits of turkey.
Placed it beside Bruno’s regular bowl.
The dog looked at it. Then at David.
“No reason,” David said, settling into the chair nearby. “Just figured… maybe you’d like to eat like family.”
Bruno lowered his muzzle and ate.
David watched the flicker of firelight on the old dog’s fur and whispered softly to no one in particular:
“I’ll carry the weight for both of us now.”
And in that moment — small, quiet, dimly lit — something like peace settled between them.
A knowing. A promise.
He had rescued a broken dog.
And now that dog was rescuing him right back — day by day, limp by limp, breath by breath.
Continue Reading part 10 – “Where the Light Touches the Floor”