Part 7 – The Visitor
Setting: Early December | Ashland, Kentucky
Snow fell steadily now.
The kind that softened everything—rooftops, fences, old grief.
Clara stood at the kitchen window with her breath fogging the glass, watching cardinals bounce from branch to branch.
Behind her, Jolene stirred hot cocoa in a pan and tried not to cry every time the silence wasn’t filled by Junebug’s nails tapping the floor.
Three weeks had passed.
No barking.
No howling.
No crooked tail thumping against the baseboard.
Just memory.
And Clara, still healing.
The weeping cedar behind the house had become a ritual.
Every Friday after school, Clara bundled herself up in mismatched gloves and tramped out to the stone ring they’d made.
She didn’t say prayers.
Didn’t speak much at all.
She’d just sit cross-legged in the snow, draw something, then tuck the paper into a glass jar she’d buried halfway in the earth.
One jar.
Seven pictures.
Junebug in different skies. Different postures.
Sometimes with wings.
Sometimes just… smiling.
Jolene didn’t ask what she was waiting for.
She only brought cocoa, then left her daughter to the snow and sky.
It was the second Tuesday of December when Clara first saw him.
A mutt, same size as Junebug, but with a brindled coat and long, awkward legs too big for his body.
He sat at the edge of the school parking lot like a ghost who forgot he was dead.
Just sitting.
Watching.
He didn’t come closer.
Didn’t wag.
Didn’t move.
But Clara stopped cold when she saw him.
Her chest fluttered in a way that didn’t feel like sickness.
The boy next to her asked, “That your dog?”
“No,” she said. Then, quieter: “Not yet.”
The dog was gone when Jolene pulled up.
Clara didn’t say anything until dinner.
“He was waiting,” she said, poking at her mashed potatoes.
“Who?”
“The new one.”
Jolene froze. “A stray?”
Clara nodded. “I think Junebug sent him.”
Jolene tried to smile but her lips wouldn’t quite obey.
“That’s a sweet idea, honey.”
“It’s not an idea,” Clara said. “It’s real.”
The next day, he was there again.
Different corner. Same distance.
Same stillness.
Clara walked closer.
The dog didn’t run.
Didn’t come.
Just waited.
She crouched. Held out her hand.
He tilted his head but stayed rooted.
“You don’t have to be her,” she whispered. “You just have to stay.”
Then she stood.
And walked away.
When she looked back, he was still there.
Watching.
That Friday, there were eight drawings in the jar beneath the cedar.
Junebug.
And beside her, the brindled dog with legs too long and ears too low.
No wings.
Not yet.
But he was smiling.
By Saturday, the dog had found their porch.
He lay on the mat like he’d lived there all his life.
Jolene gasped when she opened the door.
Clara didn’t.
She just knelt beside him and stroked his head.
He leaned into it, eyes fluttering closed.
“What’s his name?” Jolene asked, voice trembling.
Clara smiled.
“I don’t know yet.”
Then, turning to the dog, she added, “You’ll tell me when it’s time.”
That night, the house didn’t feel empty.
The bowl beside the fridge was full again.
The leash still hung, unused.
But something old had opened a door.
Not to replace what was lost.
But to say:
I’m still here.
Just in a different shape.
Part 8 – The Name Waiting to Be Said
Setting: One week before Christmas | Ashland, Kentucky
The brindled dog didn’t leave.
Not the next day.
Not the day after.
By Sunday, Jolene had stopped calling him “that stray” and started calling him “that guest.”
But Clara had still not given him a name.
“I can’t,” she said. “Not until I know what he’s here for.”
Jolene nodded slowly. “And how will you know?”
“I’ll feel it,” Clara answered. “Like I did with Junebug.”
He followed Clara everywhere—never barking, never begging.
He lay by the bathroom door while she brushed her teeth.
He waited at the bottom of the stairs when she got dressed.
He walked beside her without a leash, step for careful step, like he’d been practicing all his life for this moment.
But still—no name.
At school, her teacher Mrs. Givens pulled Jolene aside.
“She’s doing better,” she said. “Clara. She’s participating again. Laughing, even.”
Jolene felt tears sting her eyes.
“She talks about her dog a lot.”
“Junebug?” Jolene asked.
Mrs. Givens shook her head.
“No. The new one.”
Then she smiled. “She says he hasn’t told her his name yet.”
That night, Clara brought the brindled dog to the cedar.
The snow was lighter now, thin patches giving way to the frostbitten grass.
She sat him down beside her, tucked another picture into the glass jar.
Junebug again.
But this time, she was walking away.
Not sad.
Just peaceful.
Behind her, the brindled dog was looking forward.
“Is it okay if I stop missing her every second?” Clara whispered. “Just some seconds now?”
The dog blinked slowly.
And wagged.
Christmas lights glowed on the porch that evening.
Clara watched them blink on and off, chin resting on the windowsill.
The brindled dog lay beside her, head on his paws, breathing slow and deep.
“Mom?” Clara called.
Jolene appeared in the hallway, dish towel slung over her shoulder.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Did you ever love something so much it broke you?”
Jolene sat beside her.
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I loved it anyway.”
Clara nodded.
Then reached down and ran her hand along the dog’s back.
“He’s not Junebug.”
“No,” Jolene said. “He’s not.”
Clara smiled. “But he’s still mine.”
That night, Jolene awoke to a strange sound.
She padded barefoot down the hallway, heart thudding.
In the living room, Clara stood beside the Christmas tree, one hand on the brindled dog’s head.
She was whispering something.
Jolene stepped closer.
“You okay, honey?”
Clara looked up, smiling through sleepy eyes.
“He told me his name.”
Jolene raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Clara nodded.
“It’s Hollow.”
Jolene blinked. “That’s a… quiet name.”
Clara ran her hand over his head again.
“He came where something was missing. And now he’s helping me fill it.”
They made a new tag for his collar the next morning.
Hollow, etched in crooked letters.
Clara said Junebug would’ve liked it.
“She always knew when something was empty,” she said.
Jolene smiled. “And she always showed up right in the middle of it.”
That afternoon, Hollow and Clara sat under the cedar tree again.
The snow had melted in a perfect circle around them.
And in the jar, now nearly full of drawings, the latest one showed all three dogs—
Junebug in the distance.
Hollow beside Clara.
And a third, unfinished one, sketched in faint outline.
Not for now.
But someday.
Because Clara knew:
The waiting room never really closed.
It just changed who it was waiting for.