Part 4 – “Some Love Doesn’t Leave”
The cassette sat on Leo’s nightstand for three days before he could bring himself to play it.
Every time he reached for it, his stomach tightened, like the words inside might change everything—or nothing at all.
On the third night, he dug out an old Walkman from the junk drawer.
The batteries were corroded, but Rick found new ones in the shed without asking why.
Leo didn’t explain. He just took them, muttered “Thanks,” and disappeared into his room.
Rusty followed, settling beside the bed with a soft grunt.
The red scarf pooled beneath his chin like a blanket stitched from memory.
Leo clicked the tape into place, pressed play.
Static. Then a long pause.
Then her voice.
“Hi, Leo. It’s… it’s Mommy.”
It didn’t sound like he remembered it.
It was younger. Softer. A little uncertain, like she hadn’t used it in a while.
“I hope you’re big by now. I bet you’re handsome. I bet you look like your dad when he used to laugh.”
Leo blinked hard.
“I don’t know how to explain everything, sweetheart. Some things just break in people. And when they do, they run. I ran. But not from you. Never from you.”
Rusty lifted his head, ears twitching.
“I used to wrap that red scarf around you and think: if I’m not there, maybe it can be. Just a little piece of me to hold onto.”
Her voice cracked then. A long breath followed.
“If someone’s playing you this tape, it means I didn’t come back. And I’m sorry for that. I’m so, so sorry.”
The tape whirred. Then silence.
Then—
“Do you have a dog yet? I hope so. You always reached for them like they had answers no one else did. If you find one who stays, let him stay. Some love doesn’t leave, even if it looks like it does.”
Click.
End of side A.
Leo sat frozen.
The Walkman hummed with stillness.
Rusty rested his chin on Leo’s leg, as if to say, I stayed.
Leo set the cassette down gently.
Then he curled onto the floor next to the dog, both of them pressed close, breathing together in the dark.
For a while, that was enough.
The next morning, Rick was at the stove.
Actual eggs. Toast. The radio on low.
Leo blinked at the kitchen like it had been rearranged in his sleep.
“You’re cooking?”
Rick shrugged. “Figured it was time.”
Leo sat. Rusty trotted over and sat, too—like a second son.
Rick tossed him a corner of toast without a word.
After a quiet minute, Rick said, “Your mom used to hum to you. Did you know that?”
Leo shook his head.
“She’d put you in that bouncy seat and hum some old country tune. Drove me nuts.” He chuckled softly. “But you’d grin. Big gummy smile. Like it was the best sound in the world.”
Leo looked down. “Why didn’t she come back?”
Rick’s hands paused mid-motion.
He set the spatula down.
“She got sick. The kind that doesn’t show on the outside.”
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t understand it. I thought she was just leaving. But she was breaking, Leo. Quietly.”
The room went still.
Even the radio seemed to hush.
Rick turned. His eyes were red.
“I should’ve told you sooner.”
Leo didn’t speak.
He just nodded.
Then he reached down and scratched behind Rusty’s ear.
“Some love doesn’t leave,” he said.
Rick blinked, confused.
Leo held up the cassette.
“She told me. On here.”
Rick sat slowly.
And for the first time in years, father and son looked each other in the eye—really looked.
That weekend, Ms. Mallory drove them to the park.
Leo tossed a tennis ball again and again.
Rusty bounded after it, scarf fluttering like a banner.
Rick sat on the bench beside Ms. Mallory.
“Never thought I’d be the kind of guy to get emotional over a dog.”
Ms. Mallory smiled.
“You’re not crying over a dog. You’re crying over what the dog brought back.”
Rusty dropped the ball at Leo’s feet, tongue lolling, eyes bright.
Ms. Mallory leaned in, lowered her voice.
“Leo’s changing. He doesn’t flinch as much. Doesn’t look for exits. That’s because he’s being seen.”
Rick watched his son laugh—a real, full laugh.
“I missed so much,” he said.
“But not everything,” she replied. “You came back just in time.”
That night, Leo added a new drawing to his sketchbook:
Rusty, with the red scarf flying, standing at a half-open door.
Inside, light poured out like a promise.
Below it, in small, careful letters, he wrote:
Some things stay.
Part 5: “The Drawing on the Fridge”
The drawing didn’t stay in Leo’s sketchbook for long.
Rick found it the next morning—Rusty in motion, red scarf flaring behind him like a streak of sunlight, a door open in front of him, golden light flooding the page.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at it a long time while the coffeepot sputtered in the background.
Then, without a word, he took a magnet shaped like a cow from the side of the fridge and stuck the picture dead center on the door.
Leo stood in the kitchen doorway, frozen.
“You put it up?”
Rick looked over. “You drew it, didn’t you?”
Leo nodded slowly.
Rick shrugged. “Then it belongs up.”
It was the smallest gesture.
But to Leo, it felt like planting a flag.
A quiet sign that said, you’re seen now.
At school that week, the whispers didn’t sting the same.
Not because they stopped.
But because Leo didn’t belong to them anymore.
He had somewhere else to go. Someone waiting.
Rusty met him every day at the gate, tied to the old bike rack with a piece of rope and a patience only dogs understood.
Even the mean kids stopped to stare.
They didn’t say much—just watched that mangy, red-scarf-wearing mutt sit like a knight on guard duty.
One afternoon, Mason Blake, who’d spent most of fifth grade knocking Leo’s books out of his hands, walked up and said,
“That your dog?”
Leo nodded.
“What happened to his ear?” Mason asked, not cruelly—just curious.
Leo looked down at Rusty.
“Don’t know. He had it when I found him.”
Mason crouched, slow and cautious. Rusty let him pet his shoulder.
“He’s kinda cool,” Mason muttered.
Leo didn’t know what to say.
So he just said, “Yeah.”
It wasn’t a truce exactly. But it was something.
That Saturday, Ms. Mallory invited them over for lunch.
Leo hadn’t known teachers had houses. But hers looked like something out of a book—ivy crawling up the siding, wind chimes on the porch, a hammock swinging from two bent pines.
Rusty trotted right in like he’d been there before.
He sniffed every corner, then curled on the rug beside the fireplace like it was waiting just for him.
Ms. Mallory served grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.
Rick fumbled with his spoon like he hadn’t sat at someone’s table in years.
Afterward, she handed Leo another box.
“Found this in my attic last night. Some things I’d saved… photos, notes. Your mom would’ve wanted you to have them.”
Inside were scraps of Diane’s life.
Concert stubs. A friendship bracelet.
A dog-eared paperback with her name written in loopy cursive inside the cover.
But one thing made Leo freeze.
A letter. Unopened. Addressed to Rick Winstead.
The envelope yellowed with time.
Rick stared at it like it might burn him.
He didn’t reach for it.
Ms. Mallory said softly, “She wrote it the night before she left.”
Rick slowly took it.
Turned it over once.
Twice.
But didn’t open it.
Not yet.
Later, as the sun slanted low through the porch rails, Leo sat on the steps beside Rusty.
Ms. Mallory came out with a paper cup of lemonade for each of them.
“She loved you, you know,” she said.
Leo nodded.
“I think I’m starting to believe that.”
Rusty lifted his head, squinting into the fading light.
“You okay, boy?” Leo asked, scratching behind his ear.
Rusty whined faintly.
His tail wagged once.
“Getting tired?” Leo whispered.
Rusty lowered his head onto Leo’s foot.
Ms. Mallory sat beside him, voice quiet.
“Some dogs find a place to rest only after they’ve done what they were sent to do.”
Leo frowned. “What do you mean?”
She just smiled.
“You’ll know. When the time comes.”
That night, Leo tucked Rusty in on the blanket at the foot of his bed.
The red scarf was soft with age, but still bright.
“Night, boy,” he whispered.
Rusty blinked once, slowly.
Outside, the stars blinked on.
One by one.
Like lights in forgotten windows.
Part 6: “The Envelope Left Unopened”
The letter stayed on the kitchen counter for two days.
Unopened.
Unspoken.
Rick moved it from one spot to another like it was in the way but couldn’t be thrown out.
He never asked Leo if he wanted to read it.
And Leo never asked why he hadn’t.
Rusty, meanwhile, grew quieter.
He still greeted Leo at the school gate, still wagged his tail and licked the boy’s wrist—but the wag was slower now, and the trot had become a shuffle.
“He’s just tired,” Rick said, watching Rusty curl up on the living room rug.
But Leo knew better.
The old dog’s breaths were longer now.
Deeper.
As if each one was gathering more of the world before letting go.
One night, Leo woke to the sound of scratching.
Rusty stood at the back door, head lowered, tail still.
He didn’t bark.
He just looked back at Leo—eyes calm, almost apologetic.
Leo opened the door, and Rusty stepped out into the cold grass, the red scarf dragging behind him.
The stars above Elk Valley were especially clear that night.
Leo sat on the porch and watched Rusty walk just a few yards out, then lie down in the dirt beneath the cottonwood tree, the one that leaned a little to the right.
The moon lit the yard with silver.
Rusty didn’t move.
Just looked at Leo.
“I’m not ready,” Leo whispered.
Rusty blinked.
And Leo understood.
It wasn’t goodbye.
Not yet.
Just soon.
The next day, Leo didn’t go to school.
Rick didn’t argue.
They took Rusty to the vet just to “check him out,” though all three of them—boy, man, and mutt—knew what was coming.
“He’s old,” the vet said kindly. “Might have some arthritis. Maybe something deeper. But he’s not in pain. Just… winding down.”
Leo nodded.
He didn’t cry.
Not then.
Rick asked, “Is there anything we should do?”
“Love him,” the vet said simply. “That’s all that matters now.”
That night, Rick opened the envelope.
He sat at the table, the kitchen light humming faintly above.
Leo waited nearby, pretending to draw.
Rick’s hands trembled as he unfolded the paper.
Then he read.
Rick,
I don’t expect you to forgive me.
I don’t even know if I’ll ever forgive myself.But you need to know something. I never stopped loving you. I never stopped loving Leo.
I was drowning, and I didn’t know how to ask for help. I thought if I left, I’d spare you both from watching me fall apart.
If there’s one thing I pray for—it’s that one day, Leo finds something or someone that helps him feel safe again.
He’s got a big heart. Don’t let it close.
Please.
– Diane
Rick folded the letter with a strange reverence.
Set it back on the table like something sacred.
Leo didn’t speak.
Then Rick looked up, his eyes full.
“I should’ve read that a long time ago.”
Leo nodded. “But you read it now.”
That was enough.
The following morning, Rusty didn’t get up right away.
He blinked at Leo, then rested his head back on the blanket.
Leo sat beside him, pulling the red scarf gently from where it had slipped off in the night.
He tied it back around Rusty’s neck.
“Still yours,” he whispered.
Rusty’s tail thumped once.
Just once.
They carried him out to the backyard later that afternoon.
The sun was low, the air golden and still.
Rick had dug a soft patch under the cottonwood.
Leo placed Rusty’s favorite tennis ball beside him.
Then the red scarf.
He almost couldn’t let it go.
But he did.
Rick placed a hand on Leo’s shoulder.
Neither of them spoke.
Words wouldn’t fit the moment.
Instead, they stood there together as the light slipped behind the trees,
and a hush settled over the yard.
Not sorrow.
Something gentler.
Like peace.
That night, Leo drew again.
A cottonwood tree.
A boy standing beneath it.
And a dog, scarf flying, disappearing into light.
He didn’t sign it.
Didn’t have to.
It was already his.