🔹 PART 4 – Scratches on the Floorboards
Waffles settled in like nothing had ever happened.
By afternoon, he was limping around the kitchen, tail thudding gently against the fridge door, sniffing the old rug that still held traces of spilled bacon grease from Frank’s less careful mornings. He moved slower, but there was a spark in his eyes again — like a dusty bulb finally glowing back to life.
Frank filled his bowl with soft rice and plain chicken. No kibble today. Not for a dog who’d stared down the back end of an abandoned textile plant and limped away with his pride intact.
He watched Waffles eat with an odd kind of reverence.
That dog had no idea about vet bills, or insurance plans, or how a $480 invoice could pull up everything a man didn’t want to think about. Waffles just ate. Trusted. Loved.
It was as simple as that.
Later that evening, Frank opened the hall closet again.
Same creaky hinges. Same smell of old coats and stored winters.
This time, he dug a little deeper.
Beneath the boxes, tucked behind a spare leash, was a photo album. Black cover. Edges worn soft from years of fingers and memory.
He hadn’t looked at it since his wife, Maria, passed in 2013.
He brought it to the living room, sat on the recliner with Waffles at his feet, and opened it carefully. Dust lifted off the pages like a breath held too long.
First page: Maria and Evan in the yard, autumn leaves falling behind them. Evan was five. Missing a tooth. Maria’s hair was still brown then, and she wore that wool coat she refused to give up until the elbows wore through.
Frank touched the photo gently.
Next page: Frank in his sanitation uniform, holding a baby Evan with one arm, a snow shovel in the other. He looked younger than he remembered. Like life hadn’t had its way with him yet.
Then came a photo Frank had forgotten existed — the day they brought Waffles home. The dog was skin and ribs, all eyes and worry. Evan had wrapped him in a beach towel. Maria stood behind them, smiling despite herself.
There were scratches on the kitchen floorboards in the background of that picture.
Frank looked down.
They were still there.
He bent forward, ran his hand over the worn patch beneath the table — marks from puppy nails that never stopped slipping across the linoleum during playtime.
Twelve years, and they’d never vanished.
Just like the memories.
At 8:15 that night, his phone buzzed.
A message from Evan.
“Hey. You busy?”
Frank hesitated, then typed back:
“Not unless Matlock starts early tonight.”
Three minutes later, headlights flashed outside the window. Frank opened the door to find Evan holding a brown paper bag and a six-pack of something that wasn’t cheap.
“I figured,” Evan said, holding up the bag, “if Waffles gets chicken and rice, maybe we get Chinese?”
Frank stepped aside.
They ate on the couch. Waffles curled between them like a well-worn armrest.
“You ever think about refinancing the house?” Evan asked after a few bites. “Rates are still low. I know a guy. Could knock a few hundred off your monthly.”
Frank didn’t look up. “That sounds like something people with time left do.”
Evan frowned. “Dad.”
“I’m not saying no,” Frank said. “I’m saying… maybe you don’t need to fix everything with a spreadsheet.”
There was a beat of silence.
Evan cleared his throat. “I guess that’s fair.”
Then: “But you could’ve told me about the vet bill.”
Frank gave a quiet grunt. “I raised you so I wouldn’t have to.”
Evan shook his head, smiling.
“You raised me so I’d leave,” he said. “But you never made me forget.”
Frank looked over.
“Forget what?”
“How many times you came home smelling like garbage juice and still helped me with math. How many nights you fell asleep sitting up because you didn’t want to wake me by snoring.”
Frank chuckled. “That wasn’t love, kid. That was sleep apnea.”
They both laughed.
But then it got quiet again.
The kind of quiet where things are finally safe to say.
“I used to be embarrassed,” Evan said softly. “When people asked what my dad did.”
Frank’s hands stilled on the beer bottle.
Evan kept going. “I’d say ‘sanitation,’ and try to change the subject. I wanted to be someone else so badly, I forgot how hard you worked to let me become that.”
Frank nodded once, slow.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I had to get up at 4 a.m. and drive your ungrateful butt to those private school interviews, remember? I saw your face every time someone asked what your dad did.”
Evan exhaled. “I’m sorry.”
Frank waved him off.
“You were a kid. You thought money made the man.”
“Still kind of do,” Evan admitted. “Except now I know what kind of man I want to be.”
Frank looked at him.
And for the first time in a long while, he saw Evan not as a banker in a suit — not as the boy who left — but as someone standing still long enough to listen.
That meant something.
That meant everything.
Later, as Evan stood to leave, he bent down and kissed Waffles on the head.
“You good, buddy?”
The dog gave a sleepy wag.
Frank walked him to the door.
“Hey,” Evan said before stepping onto the porch. “I’m gonna swing by Sunday. Bring some tools. That porch rail’s been splintered since last winter.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “You do repairs now?”
Evan shrugged. “YouTube’s a miracle.”
Frank nodded.
“Alright. Bring good beer.”
Evan grinned. “Deal.”
He turned, started walking.
Then stopped.
Turned back.
“I never said thank you. For that day. Behind Pete’s.”
Frank leaned against the doorway.
“You were six,” he said. “You said it a hundred times that week. Every time Waffles licked your face.”
“No,” Evan said. “I mean thank you… for seeing something worth saving. In him. And in me.”
Frank swallowed hard.
Then he just nodded.
And Evan walked into the night — the kind of night that didn’t feel like loss anymore.
The kind that felt like maybe, just maybe, there was still time.