Part 5 – The Morning After
They buried him just after sunrise.
The frost clung to the grass like silver thread, and the sky hadn’t yet turned blue when Brandon lifted the blanket-wrapped body of his old friend and carried it—slowly, reverently—down the hill behind the barn.
Marlene followed behind, a small wooden box in her arms. Inside were the gifts. The pinecone. The mitten. The boot. The polished stick. Even the chewed-up rubber hydrant. All of it had been placed in the box the night before, just before Socks drew his final breath.
None of the animals had left. Harlan the donkey walked a few steps behind them, ears down. One of the cats trotted ahead, weaving between blades of frosted grass, then stopped and waited each time they slowed.
The possum was nowhere in sight, but Marlene swore she saw prints—tiny, meandering trails in the frost that ended near the garden shed, pointed toward the grave site.
They buried Socks near the creek, beside the stone bench Walter had built from old chimney bricks the year after his retirement. It was where Marlene used to read aloud in the evenings. It was where Socks had chased butterflies and lay under the shade of a crooked hickory tree for hours in the summer.
Brandon knelt and laid the blanket down gently.
Marlene placed the box beside him.
Together, they filled the earth in silence.
When the last scoop of dirt was patted flat, Brandon stood and wiped his face with both sleeves. He looked twenty years older than he had the day before.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, eyes still fixed on the small mound of earth. “For keeping him. For loving him when I… when I couldn’t be here.”
Marlene nodded.
“You gave him a reason to wait,” she said. “And a reason to rest.”
They sat on the porch for most of the morning, sipping coffee that had gone cold. Harlan lingered near the gate. The cats slept in odd little piles near the edge of the steps. The world was quieter, the kind of quiet that only comes when something important has passed through it.
Brandon didn’t speak for a long time.
Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Worn, creased a dozen times over. He handed it to Marlene without a word.
She unfolded it.
It was one of her old letters. Postmarked three years earlier.
Inside was a photo she’d enclosed—Socks sitting on the porch with a pinecone between his paws.
“I kept every one of your letters,” Brandon said. “I just… couldn’t face what they meant.”
Marlene looked up. “And what did they mean?”
“That I’d abandoned him. And you. The only ones who ever gave me something without asking for anything back.”
She folded the letter and handed it back.
“You were a kid,” she said. “You did what kids do. But you came back. That’s what matters.”
Brandon nodded slowly. “Still feels like too little, too late.”
Then a rustling noise broke the air.
They both turned.
The possum had returned. It waddled up onto the porch, dragging something small behind it in its mouth. At first, Marlene thought it was just another trinket.
But then she saw what it was—a single white daffodil. Unseasonal. Out of place. But real.
The possum laid it beside the step, turned once toward Socks’ empty spot, and disappeared again.
That night, Marlene brought out the old photo album.
They sat under a quilt and flipped through pages: pictures of Walter holding a trout, of the barn before it had leaned with age, of Socks as a pup—ears too big, eyes too round.
“I never thought he’d make it past ten,” Marlene said, laughing softly. “He had bad hips even then.”
“He always found a way,” Brandon replied. “Always came home, even when the gate was open.”
They paused at a picture of Socks curled up with a baby goat, both asleep in the straw.
“That goat chewed my sweater to bits,” Marlene said.
“But Socks never moved,” Brandon smiled. “Like he was protecting it. Or maybe just didn’t want to disturb the moment.”
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was warm. Like the porch itself had settled, knowing that grief had been shared instead of buried.
Before bed, Marlene stepped outside alone.
She stood by the edge of the porch, looking down toward the small grave. The moonlight caught the bricks of the old bench, and she thought she saw movement—a flick of fur, the twitch of an ear.
But it was only a trick of the light.
She turned to go back inside when she noticed something on the doormat.
Another offering.
A red marble. Smooth. Bright. Clean. As if it had been polished with care.
She bent down and picked it up.
And for the first time since Socks passed, she smiled without pain.
The next morning, as Brandon packed his truck to leave, Marlene handed him a small box.
Inside: one of Socks’ old collars, the red marble, and a note that read:
“He never really left. He just passed the watch to you.”
Brandon closed the tailgate and looked back at the porch.
Three cats sat in a line.
And from behind the barn, came the slow, steady bray of a donkey—
As if to say, We’ll be here. Keep the porch warm.