Part 4: “The Things We Carry”
Henry stood in the shed with a rag in one hand and a can of metal polish in the other.
The bike had a name—June. He’d called her that because he bought her in June of 1980, back when he was still a lineman with the county, strong in the arms and reckless in the heart. She’d carried him through bad dates, good jobs, and long afternoons chasing sunsets.
Bugsy used to ride with him, snug in a harness Henry had stitched from old backpack straps and a belt. The goggles were a joke at first—until Bugsy took to them like they were armor.
Now the bike’s paint was dull. The chrome, pitted. The gas tank smelled like dust and ghosts. But the wheels still turned.
Henry ran a hand over the seat and let the rag drop.
He wasn’t polishing the bike. Not really.
He was remembering the man who once rode it.
—
On Sunday, Paige brought over a solar-powered water kettle and a box of chocolate chip cookies.
“Bribery,” she said. “Works better than kindness.”
She found Henry at the kitchen table, flipping through a stack of old mail.
“I thought they forwarded everything,” she said.
“They did,” he said. “Most of it’s junk. But this one… it’s from the VA.”
He held up a letter.
“They say they’ve been trying to contact me about a benefit I never claimed. Disability payout from an old injury. Small check. Not much.”
He set it down.
“But the thing is, it’s dated March.”
Paige raised her eyebrows. “That’s… seven months ago.”
Henry nodded. “Which means they sent it to the old address. The house they moved me out of. Without asking.”
Bugsy, curled under the table, shifted and let out a low huff.
“They never meant for me to come back,” Henry said quietly. “They figured I’d just fade out somewhere. Less to manage.”
Paige sat down across from him. “But you did come back.”
He looked out the window. “Yeah. Thanks to a little girl with sharp eyes and a dog with too much loyalty.”
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Paige leaned forward. “Let me help you fill out the response. Get the check sent here. Get your name back on the books. Let people know you’re still here.”
Henry gave a slow, reluctant nod. “Might be time.”
Bugsy stretched, got up, and nudged Henry’s knee with his nose.
“Still here,” the gesture seemed to say.
Still watching.
Still waiting.
—
That afternoon, Mika joined them with a stack of envelopes under her arm.
She was starting a project.
“Dog Watchers of Eureka Springs.”
Each envelope had a drawing on the front—a dog sitting beside a gas pump—and inside was a handwritten letter:
“Dear Neighbors,
A dog named Bugsy waited six months beside a gas station for his owner to come back. He did.
Not everything old should be left behind.
If you see a dog waiting, check. Ask. Care.
– Mika Reynolds, Age 9”
She handed one to Henry.
He read it three times.
“You gonna mail these?” he asked.
“Gonna hang them up too. Library. Post office. The co-op bulletin board.”
Henry smiled, not with his mouth but with his whole face. “You’re a lot older than nine.”
Mika grinned. “You’re a lot younger than you think.”
Bugsy sneezed.
They all laughed.
—
Later, Paige sat with Henry on the porch while Mika and Bugsy explored the yard.
The sun was low in the sky, orange and soft. The trees whispered with a thousand dry voices.
“Do you think he ever gave up?” Paige asked.
“Who?”
“Bugsy.”
Henry looked out toward the gas station that lived only in memory now. “Nah. Dogs don’t give up like we do. They don’t make backup plans. They love one thing. And they wait for it.”
Paige was quiet a moment.
“I think we’re the ones who forget,” she said. “Forget how to wait. Forget how to love without conditions.”
Henry’s voice was rough. “We forget because it hurts.”
They sat in silence.
Then he reached down and picked up an old collar from beside the step. It had Bugsy’s name carved into a brass tag, dulled with time.
“I’m keeping this,” he said. “Even if he doesn’t wear it anymore.”
Paige nodded.
“The things we carry,” she said softly. “They’re not always for now. Sometimes they’re just… to remind us we were loved once.”
Bugsy came trotting up the steps then, Mika behind him with a pine cone in each hand.
“He chased a squirrel and gave up halfway,” she said.
“Smart boy,” Henry muttered.
“Are you talking about the dog or me?” Mika asked, grinning.
“Both.”
—
That night, Paige tucked Mika into bed and lingered at the doorway.
“You’ve been thinking a lot about old things lately,” she said.
Mika blinked up from her pillow. “I think people forget too easy.”
“Forget what?”
“That everything new isn’t always better. That sometimes the best things are the ones with cracks in them.”
Paige smiled. “Like Bugsy.”
“Like Henry.”
They were quiet.
Then Mika said, “We should go back next weekend.”
“We will.”
“Maybe he’ll ride the motorcycle again.”
Paige paused. “Maybe.”
She turned off the light and closed the door.
But long after, she sat at the kitchen table, staring out at the charger screen blinking blue, thinking about men, dogs, bikes, and the long journey it takes just to come home again.
Part 5: “Where the Engine Sleeps”
Henry stood over the motorcycle with his sleeves rolled and his knuckles aching.
Bugsy lay nearby on an old folded quilt, one ear twitching, watching his person tinker like it was 2012 again.
The Indian Scout sat in the shed like a relic from a war no one remembered. Its tires were cracked, the headlamp dull, and one mirror hung limp on a rusted screw. But the bones were good. The frame was solid. Henry knew that kind of truth—you don’t throw something out just because it needs a little help starting.
He slid a hand along the tank. “You ready, June?” he whispered.
Bugsy thumped his tail once.
—
Paige showed up with coffee and a jug of antifreeze.
“Brought you something hot and something cold,” she said, handing over the travel mug.
Henry gave a half-grin. “You really don’t know how to mind your own business, do you?”
“Nope,” she said. “Not when the business includes a motorcycle and a good man trying to remember who he used to be.”
He stared at her a moment. “That what this is? Remembering?”
She sipped her own coffee. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just not letting time decide what gets to stay.”
They worked side by side in silence for a while.
Paige unscrewed the fuel cap. Henry tested the brake cables. Bugsy got up once and sniffed at the toolbox like he was checking their progress.
At one point, Henry glanced at her and said, “It’s funny. I thought if I ever got old, I’d want peace. Quiet. A chair on a porch and nobody bothering me.”
“And?”
“And now all I want is a reason to get up before the sun.”
Paige looked at him, really looked.
“Then fix the bike, Henry.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Ride it again.”
Another nod.
“And bring Bugsy with you.”
That time, he smiled.
—
Mika brought a new drawing the next day. This one had motion—June flying across an open road, Bugsy with his tongue lolling from the sidecar, Henry wearing goggles and wind in his beard.
At the top, she’d written:
“Some engines never die. They just wait for the right reason to start.”
Henry taped it to the fridge.
Then he pulled out the harness from a drawer. It smelled like oil and old leather. Bugsy sniffed it and sneezed, but then he wagged once.
“You remember this?” Henry asked.
Bugsy wagged again.
They practiced in the yard—Bugsy stepping into the straps like a well-trained soldier. Mika watched from the porch, feet swinging.
“You think he’d ride again?” she asked.
“He never forgot how,” Henry said. “That’s the thing about dogs. They remember what matters.”
Bugsy stood still, wearing the sidecar harness like he’d never taken it off.
And for a second, Henry saw not just his dog but his life, looking back at him with patient eyes.
—
By Friday, the motorcycle coughed.
Then sputtered.
Then roared.
Not loud, not strong—but enough.
Henry killed the engine after only a few seconds and just sat there, hands trembling, heart full.
Bugsy trotted over and placed his head on Henry’s boot.
“You and me, old boy,” Henry whispered. “One more ride.”
—
That weekend, Henry pulled up to the EV charger station, engine rumbling low and steady.
Paige’s electric car was parked beside Pump #2.
Mika leapt out the moment she saw them.
“He’s riding again!” she shouted, running over.
Bugsy wore his goggles like a war hero, tongue out, tail high. The sidecar was lined with cushions and a fleece blanket. Henry wore his old riding jacket, the zipper halfway up and patched at the shoulder.
Paige stood beside her daughter, eyes wide with something soft.
Henry pulled off his helmet. “It ain’t much,” he said. “She rattles like bones in a coffee can. But she moves.”
Bugsy let out a bark—his first in weeks.
Mika clapped. “You’re back.”
Henry looked at her. “I never really left. Just got parked for a while.”
Paige stepped forward. “Where you headed?”
“Nowhere special. Just the old route through town. Maybe swing by the river. Let the engine stretch its legs.”
Bugsy barked again, tail beating the wind.
Mika tugged on her mom’s sleeve. “Can we go with them?”
Paige hesitated.
Then smiled.
“Why not?”
She loaded Mika into the car and let the charger disconnect with a soft click. The electric hum was replaced by the warm growl of June’s motor.
Henry gave a thumbs-up.
Then he turned the throttle, and they all pulled out together.
One silent.
One rumbling.
One dog howling joy into the wind like time had never passed.
—
Later, parked by the riverbank, Henry sat on the motorcycle while Mika tossed pebbles with Bugsy nosing at her heels.
“You know,” Paige said, joining him on the bench. “I didn’t think you’d fix it. The bike. I thought maybe it was just a thing you kept to feel close to who you were.”
“Maybe it was,” Henry said.
He stared at the river. The water moved like memory—always there, always different.
“But maybe,” he added, “it was waiting for someone to believe I could still ride.”
Paige looked at him.
And this time, she said nothing at all.
Just smiled.
Part 6: “The Letter in the Glove Box”
It was a cold morning that didn’t quite feel like fall anymore.
The wind had shifted overnight—sharper, older. Trees along Lost Tree Road had dropped their final leaves, and the skeletal branches reached toward the sky like arms remembering what it felt like to hold something.
Henry sat in the motorcycle shed, hands black with grease, a folded paper sitting unopened beside his coffee mug.
Bugsy lay beside the door, watching.
It wasn’t junk mail. It wasn’t a bill.
It was a letter from the state’s long-term care office, postmarked two weeks ago.
Henry hadn’t told Paige about it. Not yet.
He stared at it a long time.
Then finally opened it.
“Dear Mr. Alden,
Following our audit, we regret to inform you that your property at 204 Lost Tree Road has been flagged as inactive and considered for state transfer due to abandonment.
Pending your response and updated residency verification, the property may be eligible for reallocation under Rural Districting Code 6A.”
Henry read it twice. Then a third time.
He folded it slowly.
Then stood and walked out into the morning air.
Bugsy followed without a sound.
—
Later that day, Paige arrived with a box of blankets and thermal socks.
“Stocking you up for the cold,” she said. “You got heat running?”
“Mostly,” Henry said. “Wood stove’s up. Chimney’s clear.”
She set the box inside, dusted off her hands, and looked around.
There were small signs of change everywhere now—dishes in the drying rack, the faint scent of cinnamon, fresh wood stacked near the porch. Life had slowly filtered back in, like sap returning to an old tree.
But Henry didn’t meet her eyes that day.
Not the way he usually did.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said. Too quickly.
“Henry…”
He sighed. Pulled the letter from his back pocket. Handed it over.
She read it in silence.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Neither did I. They must’ve filed it while I was in care. They never expected me to come back.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve got thirty days to prove I still belong here.”
Bugsy sat beside them, tail thumping once.
“They’re trying to take your house,” Paige said flatly.
Henry looked out at the road. “Not trying. Just… assuming.”
Mika arrived just as the wind picked up.
She ran to Bugsy first, burying her hands in his scruff.
Then she looked at the grown-ups and went still.
“What happened?” she asked.
Paige looked at Henry, then back at her daughter.
“They might take Henry’s house.”
Mika blinked. “But… why?”
“Because a computer said it was empty,” Henry muttered. “Because it forgot to check for the dog.”
Bugsy licked his hand.
That night, Paige was quiet at dinner.
Mika pushed her peas around on the plate.
“Can’t we do something?” Mika finally asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Paige said.
But she did know one thing.
She was going to try.
She stayed up past midnight combing through rural property laws, calling in favors from an old law school roommate, and emailing a town clerk she hadn’t spoken to since college.
At 12:42 a.m., she finally found something—a clause in a 1993 zoning update that allowed for “local affidavit overrides” of abandoned property claims if the owner could show consistent presence and community support.
She smiled.
Bugsy, in the photo on her desk, seemed to smile too.
By morning, the plan had a name:
“The Dog Clause.”
Mika insisted on that.
They made flyers and knocked on doors. Paige called the town library, the grocer, the post office. Mika talked to her teacher, who printed twenty more flyers on bright orange paper.
Each flyer had Bugsy’s face and the words:
“He waited six months for Henry. Now we need thirty days for him.”
People responded.
Not all, but enough.
Mr. Delmar from the hardware store remembered Henry as the guy who once fixed the ice machine for free.
Mrs. Vargas from the community center recalled Bugsy pulling her grandson’s sled one winter.
The librarian found a photo from 2014: Henry reading to kids, Bugsy curled up on the rug beside him.
“He was part of this town,” she said. “Still is.”
A week later, Paige drove Henry into town
He wore a collared shirt. Bugsy rode in the back, calm and clean.
They walked into the district office together—man, woman, and dog.
The clerk raised an eyebrow.
“You’re the guy from the flyer,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry replied. “And I got my paperwork here. And folks who’ll vouch for me.”
She looked at Bugsy, then at the thick folder in Henry’s hands.
Then she smiled.
“I think we can call this one rescued.”
That evening, Henry lit a fire in the old stove.
Bugsy curled up beside it, sighing like a weight had finally fallen off his back.
Mika handed Henry a fresh drawing.
It showed a house, a motorcycle, and a mailbox stuffed full.
At the top she’d written:
“You were never gone. They just forgot to look.”
Henry tacked it up beside the fridge, next to the other ones.
Bugsy looked up at him and wagged—just once.
And for the first time since the gas station shut down, Henry felt like he wasn’t waiting anymore.
He was home.