Part 6: The Visitors
It started with a letter.
Not an email, not a voicemail, not a social media ping. An honest-to-God letter, dropped through the metal slot in the screen door one morning when Marlene wasn’t looking.
Scout found it first.
He stood beside the door, tail stiff, one paw raised like a pointer. Lily and Patch wrestled behind him, oblivious. But Scout’s gaze was locked on that envelope, as if it carried something dangerous—or sacred.
Marlene picked it up, wiping dust from her palms on her apron. No return address. Just her full name, carefully printed.
Marlene Ruth Dugan.
New Harmony, Indiana.
Her stomach flipped.
Nobody called her by her middle name. Not even Walter, not even her mother before the dementia set in.
She opened it slowly, the paper dry as a leaf.
It read:
I heard about the dog. And the pig. And the two pups. I don’t need anything. I just wanted to say thank you—for not giving up on what’s broken. I couldn’t stay. But I remember. And I hope you’re okay.
— C.
She folded the letter three times and didn’t speak for nearly an hour.
That same day, just before dusk, a beat-up sedan pulled into the gravel drive.
Scout barked once—sharp, unsure.
Marlene wiped her hands on a dish towel and stepped out onto the porch. Scout stood at the top of the steps. Benny beside him. Lily and Patch scrambled to hide behind Nudge’s basket.
A woman stepped out of the car. Early thirties, maybe. Dark ponytail. Thin, nervous hands. A child followed—ten, maybe eleven, with a cast on one arm and a scared expression like he expected to be turned away before saying a word.
Marlene didn’t recognize them.
But Scout did.
He didn’t move toward them. He just stood very, very still.
The woman lifted her hand. “This him?” she asked softly.
Marlene narrowed her eyes. “You know Scout?”
The woman nodded. “I think… I think he saved my brother’s life.”
They sat on the porch, the three of them. The boy—Colby—rested his head against Scout’s side without asking. Scout didn’t move.
The woman’s name was Dana. She explained slowly, awkwardly, that her older brother had once lived in Evansville, in the same trailer park Scout had been found after a fire. Her brother had struggled—drugs, drinking, long nights gone without a word.
“One night, the trailer caught fire,” she said. “They think he passed out. Neighbors said a dog broke a window and pulled him partway out before the fire crew even got there.”
She looked down at her hands. “They didn’t know where the dog went. But someone mentioned he ran. Fast. Limping.”
Marlene’s throat tightened.
“We never found the dog,” Dana whispered. “Until a friend who used to know my brother sent me a post from a rescue group. Said a woman near New Harmony had taken in a pit bull. Scarred ear. Bad leg. Guarded a piglet.”
Scout raised his head at the word piglet.
Marlene couldn’t help but smile.
Dana looked up. “I’m not here to take him. I know he’s yours now.”
She met Marlene’s gaze. “But my brother died three years ago. And I never got to thank whoever pulled him out of that trailer. If it was Scout… he deserves to be known for that.”
Marlene was quiet for a long time.
Then she reached into her apron and pulled out the letter.
She didn’t say a word. Just handed it to Dana.
Dana read it, lips pressed tight, tears catching at the corners of her eyes.
“Curtis?”
Marlene nodded. “My brother.”
The porch was quiet as the sun sank behind the cottonwoods.
Colby still hadn’t moved from Scout’s side.
“He gets nervous around dogs,” Dana said. “Since the accident, he doesn’t like loud noises or sudden moves. But… he walked right up to yours.”
Scout had tucked his head into the boy’s lap. Lily and Patch watched from the corner, tails thumping like shy schoolchildren.
Marlene studied them all—dog, child, mother. And something inside her cracked.
She exhaled. “Stay for supper.”
Dana blinked. “Are you sure?”
“Scout’s already decided,” she said.
Dinner was quiet but warm. Biscuit stew. Cold green beans. Peach cobbler warmed on the stove.
Colby asked if Nudge was a pig or a dog in disguise.
“Depends on the day,” Marlene replied.
Scout sat near the hearth, flanked by Patch and Lily. Benny hovered under the table, always hopeful for crumbs. Nudge grunted in his basket and refused to be left out.
After the dishes were washed and dried, Dana asked softly, “How do you do it? All of this?”
Marlene looked at her calloused hands.
“I stopped waiting for things to fix themselves,” she said. “So I started fixing what I could touch.”
When Dana and Colby finally stood to leave, Scout followed them out to the car.
Colby turned and wrapped his good arm around Scout’s neck.
“Thanks for not being scary,” he whispered.
Scout licked his cheek once.
Just once.
Dana looked over the roof of the car. “I don’t think he’ll ever forget this.”
Marlene shook her head. “Neither will I.”
As the car pulled away, Scout sat at the edge of the porch and watched the taillights vanish into the dusk.
And when he finally came inside, he didn’t go to his usual spot.
He curled up next to Nudge’s basket—like always—but this time, Lily and Patch climbed in too.
All four of them tangled together.
And for the first time in weeks, Scout slept with both eyes closed.