PART 5 — The Bandana Drawer
The couch still smelled like him.
Even after two weeks, June caught the scent every time she sat nearby—faint dog musk, a trace of peanut butter, and something she could only describe as warmth. She’d tried washing the afghan once. Put it in on gentle, folded it by hand. But when she placed it back on the cushion, it didn’t settle quite the same.
Clover noticed too.
The piglet paced the room more now, nose constantly brushing along the edges of the couch as if mapping out where Milo had been. Some nights, she’d try to climb into the sagging center where he used to curl, only to grunt and slide down the slope, frustrated. Other times, she just laid there, snout buried in the blanket, ears twitching as though expecting to hear his tail thumping nearby.
Jasper had returned to his regular songs, but with a softer tone. No more early wakeup whistles or mailman alerts. Only one tune remained steady: the same three rising notes at 4:00 p.m., every day.
That day, when the tune came, June happened to be in the back room.
The one she hadn’t opened in over a year.
Carl’s old den.
She didn’t plan to go in. But she’d dropped a bundle of yarn in the hallway, and when it rolled under the closed door, something in her made her open it rather than leave it alone.
The room smelled of cedar and dust.
Old Veterans of Foreign Wars medals glinted from their frame. His watch still ticked in the drawer—fifty cents from the flea market, but he’d worn it every Sunday like it was gold.
June wasn’t sure what she was looking for until she found the bandana drawer.
She’d kept all of Milo’s over the years. Tied them to fence posts, picnic baskets, even wrapped one around a casserole once when she dropped it off at a neighbor’s.
But most lived here, folded in that drawer, soft with time.
Red. Blue. One covered in cartoon bones. Another faded with the word “Best Boy” in cracked gold lettering.
She ran her fingers across them and pulled out one she didn’t remember—deep green, embroidered with a tiny stitched paw print in the corner.
And a tag.
“W.S.P.A. Rescue — Lot #42.”
She remembered now.
The first one he ever wore, when the shelter handed him over. They’d tied it on him with hope and a biscuit.
She pressed it to her chest.
Behind her, Jasper let out the softest chirp—not the full 4:00 song, just one note. A reminder.
“Coming,” she murmured, and returned to the living room.
Clover was standing at the base of the couch, staring up, expectant.
But not at the couch itself—at the space just above it.
Where Milo used to jump.
June bent down beside her.
“You still waiting for him too?”
The piglet snorted quietly, then nudged June’s knee.
The house was too still.
She needed a task.
So she opened the front closet, found the big storage tote labeled “DONATE—Milo’s things”, and hauled it to the rug.
Leashes. Blankets. Tennis balls with one bite mark each. His travel water bowl. The crate he hadn’t used since the summer of 2015 when they’d gone to Blue Ridge Lake and he got so excited at the ducks he peed on the picnic basket.
June sat cross-legged and held each item like it was made of glass.
She didn’t cry.
Not until she found the pawprint mold.
Dr. Owens had taken it the day Milo passed. He’d left it on the side table with a note: “For whenever you’re ready.”
It was heavier than it looked. The print pressed deep, every line clear. Not just a paw—but a presence.
June wrapped it in an old pillowcase and placed it gently beside the photo album on the shelf.
Then she turned to Clover.
The piglet was still by the couch, still watching, ears twitching toward a sound that wasn’t there.
And that’s when June got the idea.
“We need to give it back to someone,” she whispered. “All this love.”
She called Abby.
The girl from the firehouse fundraiser. The one with the rescue group.
“I’ve been thinking,” June said, her voice steady. “I’ve got all these supplies. Good ones. And the couch is still warm. If you ever have a foster animal who needs a quiet place to recover…”
Abby didn’t hesitate.
“Actually,” she said, “we have one now. A senior dachshund. Blind in one eye. Got dropped at the shelter last week when his owner passed. Shakes in the kennel. Would probably do better somewhere with, y’know… a couch.”
June looked at Clover, still frozen by the cushion.
“I think we have a couch that remembers,” she said.
Two days later, the dachshund arrived.
His name was Beans.
Seventeen years old, grizzled and wobbly, with ears that seemed far too large for his tiny frame. He trembled nonstop—at first.
Clover sniffed him once, hard, then nudged him toward the couch.
Beans didn’t jump. Couldn’t.
But June had already set up a little ramp.
He walked up slowly, sniffed the blanket, turned in three full circles…
And lay down.
Right in the hollow.
Clover sat beneath the couch again, like a guard. And for the first time in weeks, Jasper let out a new whistle—playful, curious, rising then falling like a leaf.
June exhaled.
Not because the grief was gone. It never would be.
But because the couch, it seemed, had remembered how to hold life again.
And love didn’t need to be buried with the dog who’d taught her how to give it.