Part 9: The Question That Stayed Unasked
It was Sunday when the visitor came.
Marlene had just finished stringing laundry along the backyard line. Scout dozed under the porch steps, the sunlight warming his scarred coat. Benny and Patch were nose-deep in the garden beds again—after being told twice to leave the turnips alone. Lily lounged in the windowsill, half a paw hanging loose in sleep. And Nudge, as usual, snored softly from his towel-lined basket near the kitchen stove.
The house was still.
And then a truck pulled up.
Not Curtis’s.
A newer model. Blue. Clean. Strange.
Marlene wiped her hands on her apron and stepped onto the porch.
A woman in her forties got out, tall and confident, with short-cropped hair and a military posture. She carried a clipboard under one arm and a calm, unreadable expression.
“Marlene Dugan?” she asked, as if it weren’t obvious.
“That’s me.”
The woman offered a small smile. “My name’s Captain Alice Fremont. I work with a veteran canine rehabilitation program out of Louisville. We train rescue dogs to support veterans with PTSD. And I believe you have one of ours.”
Scout had emerged from beneath the steps, now standing silently next to Marlene. His eyes were sharp, but he didn’t growl.
Fremont lowered to one knee.
“Hey there,” she said gently. “You look like someone who’s seen more than his share.”
Scout tilted his head but didn’t move.
Marlene crossed her arms. “No one’s taking him.”
Fremont stood again. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to ask if you’d consider letting Scout become an ambassador—for our program.”
Marlene blinked. “Ambassador?”
Fremont nodded. “Not to leave you. Not permanently. But to help us show what healing looks like. We bring in veterans to visit farms, shelters, and families like yours. Places where the story’s already written in the walls.”
She glanced down at Scout. “We need stories like his. And yours.”
Later, inside the kitchen, with coffee between them, Fremont explained more.
“We’re not asking for a mascot. We’re asking for a companion—a dog who shows the veterans that even the wounded can learn to trust again.”
Marlene didn’t speak.
Fremont continued. “Your brother—Curtis—was one of our early referrals. Before he disappeared off the radar. But he talked about Scout. Said he saw something in that dog he hadn’t seen in people in years.”
That landed like a stone in Marlene’s chest.
“He left us a list,” Fremont added quietly. “Just names. No instructions. Yours was at the top.”
That night, after the captain had gone, Marlene stood on the back porch and stared into the yard. Scout sat beside her.
She didn’t know what she felt.
Pride? Fear? Sorrow that she might be asked to share him?
The truth was, he wasn’t just her dog. Not anymore. Scout had become something bigger—protector, teacher, listener. Even the other animals followed his lead.
And what would happen when she was gone?
It wasn’t a question she liked to dwell on. But it hovered now, like a cloud that wouldn’t quite rain.
She picked up her journal that evening and wrote:
If I die tomorrow, they’ll have food for a week, water for two, and no one to keep the stories straight.
Scout could lead them, but he needs someone to lead him too.
I used to think healing was a circle that closed.
But maybe it’s a line—
One paw after the next, until someone else takes the leash.
In the days that followed, Scout seemed to sense her quiet turning.
He stayed closer than usual, brushing against her legs when she walked, nudging her wrist when she wrote too long without moving.
And the others followed suit.
Lily began sleeping by Marlene’s feet.
Patch took over barking at the mail truck.
Benny no longer chased squirrels—he stood sentry at the window, watchful.
Even Nudge began venturing farther from his basket, grunting indignantly when Marlene didn’t greet him first thing.
She laughed one morning and said aloud, “You’re all taking care of me now.”
And they were.
She called Fremont back on the fourth day.
“If he goes,” Marlene said, “he doesn’t go alone. I come with him. At least the first few visits.”
“Agreed,” Fremont replied without hesitation.
“And I won’t have him carted off to city streets or strange homes. He’s earned better.”
“He’ll always sleep at your house,” Fremont promised. “He just helps people in the daylight. Then comes home to the ones who waited for him.”
Marlene exhaled. “Then I guess he’s ready.”
Their first visit was to a shelter for veterans recovering from opioid addiction.
Scout didn’t perform tricks. He didn’t jump or wag or pose for pictures.
He simply sat in the middle of the room.
Still. Solid.
And the men came to him.
One by one.
A tattooed man with a shaky voice knelt beside him and whispered, “I had one like you. Back in Kandahar. You smell like the desert.”
Scout rested his head on the man’s leg and didn’t move.
Another man stared from across the room, then finally approached and said, “If a dog can come back from whatever tore him up, maybe I can too.”
Marlene stood in the corner and watched her dog—her broken, bandaged, healed dog—do what she never could with words.
And that night, back at the farmhouse, Scout curled into his usual spot beside Nudge.
Lily curled behind his back.
Patch snored across his paws.
And Benny, ever the awkward guardian, lay flat beneath the coffee table, tail occasionally tapping against the floor.
Marlene turned off the last lamp and whispered, “You came back to life, Scout. Now you’re giving it away.”
She wasn’t sure if he heard her.
But his tail thumped twice in the dark.