Part 9: Echoes in the Classroom
Two weeks passed.
Snow piled on the windowsills, hardened into icy sheets along the sidewalks. Jack barely left the house except to fetch the mail or brush snow off the little wooden cross under the maple tree. He kept a thermos of weak coffee near the porch and talked sometimes—not loudly, just enough to keep his own voice from disappearing.
Then came a call from Ms. Holloway.
“Hi, Mr. Raines. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“You’re not.”
“Well, the kids… they’ve been asking about Rex. Every day, actually.”
Jack didn’t say anything.
She hesitated. “Would you… would you consider coming in again? Just to talk. About him. About all of it. They remember everything you said, and I think it meant more than you realize.”
Jack rubbed his forehead, the phone warm against his ear.
“I’m not sure I have much left to say.”
“Maybe not. But maybe you don’t need to.”
The school hallway felt narrower this time.
Fluorescent lights. Kid-art taped to lockers. A faint smell of pencils and graham crackers. Ms. Holloway met him at the door again, that same hopeful smile on her face. The children were already seated, but the room felt different now—quieter, softer.
At the front of the class was a large sheet of construction paper tacked to the whiteboard.
Big black letters spelled:
“What Loyalty Looks Like.”
Beneath it were hand-drawn pictures—twenty or so crayon portraits of Rex. Some were cartoonish, others strangely accurate. But every one had eyes that seemed to look right at you.
Jack stood in front of them, his hat in his hands.
He cleared his throat.
“I buried Rex under a maple tree two weeks ago.”
No one spoke.
“I wrapped him in the blanket we used in Afghanistan. Same one he laid on in our house, right up until the end.”
Still, silence.
“I didn’t know what to say to you today. But then I realized… maybe the best way to remember a good dog is to live the way he taught you.”
He looked around the room.
“You want to know what loyalty looks like? It’s showing up. Every single time. Whether it’s a patrol in the desert, or just sitting beside someone who’s hurting.”
A boy in the back raised his hand.
“Were you scared when he died?”
Jack paused.
“Yes,” he said. “I was scared I wouldn’t know how to keep going without him. But then I remembered he’d already shown me how.”
“How?” another child asked.
Jack smiled.
“By staying. By listening. By never leaving, even when everything else falls apart.”
After the talk, Ms. Holloway pulled Jack aside and handed him a small folder.
“Just some things the kids wanted you to have.”
Inside were letters—misspelled, messy, full of love.
“Dear Mr. Rains, I think Rex was a hero. Thank you for telling us. I want to be like him.”
“I drew you a picture. It’s of heaven. I hope Rex is playing there.”
“You made me think being brave isn’t about fighting, it’s about not giving up.”
Jack’s hands trembled.
He slipped the folder into his coat, nodded a quiet thank-you, and left before his voice cracked.
That evening, he sat by the window with the letters spread out like photos from a life he never expected to live.
He thought about silence again. The kind that used to haunt him.
But this was a new kind of silence.
Not absence. Not grief.
Just peace.
He looked toward the yard, where a small wooden cross stood quietly beneath the tree, the snow piled gently around it.
“I think they got the message, old boy,” he whispered.
“I really think they did.”