🐾 PART 5 — “The Buried Thing”
Rockport, Missouri | Two Days Later
Frank Dillard didn’t sleep that night.
Not really.
He sat by the window with Axel’s old leash in one hand and the toy in the other — the faded rubber bone, chewed at the ends, still faintly smelling of dirt. A soft layer of dried mud clung to the underside, and when Frank turned it in the lamplight, he saw something that hadn’t been there before.
A thin strip of masking tape.
Written in faded blue ink: “Behind the maple tree.”
He stared at it for a long time. His hands trembled — not from age this time, but from something heavier. The kind of tremble you get when the past rises like a ghost and points at the one place you swore never to return.
Frank stood up slowly.
Outside, the wind had picked up again, sending crisp leaves tumbling across the porch like forgotten letters. He wrapped his coat around his shoulders and stepped into the dark.
The backyard hadn’t changed much.
Still uneven. Still wild around the edges where the lawnmower gave up. The big sugar maple stood tall and quiet at the back of the fence line, just like it always had. It had been Axel’s favorite tree — the one he’d lie under on hot summer days, tongue out, chest rising slow like the earth itself was exhaling.
Frank approached it now like a man approaching a grave.
He crouched — groaning a little — and brushed aside the leaves. The ground was soft from last night’s rain, and after a few minutes of digging with bare hands, he felt something solid.
Wood.
An old box. Weather-warped. Nailed shut years ago.
He lifted it slowly.
Inside was a folded note. A photo. And a key.
The note was short:
“This is for the day you’re ready.”
“—M.D.”
Frank unfolded the photo.
It was Axel — not in uniform, not on duty — but lying in the sun, paws crossed, eyes half-closed. There was a child beside him. Younger than Frank remembered Matt ever being. But it was him. Leaning against Axel’s side. Both looking at peace.
Frank hadn’t known this moment was ever captured.
And he hadn’t known Matt had come back to this house before.
The key… he didn’t recognize.
But he would.
Soon.
The next morning, Frank called Matt.
“You buried something behind my tree.”
Matt paused on the other end of the line. Then: “I hoped you’d find it.”
“You want to tell me what the key opens?”
A beat of silence.
Then Matt spoke gently. “It opens what I couldn’t say out loud.”
They met that afternoon at the Rockport Library.
Matt looked older than he had a week ago — not in body, but in the eyes. Like remembering had aged him. Or maybe like sharing the weight of it had started to lift something that had grown heavy for too long.
They sat in the corner by the large windows, the kind of spot where light felt honest.
Matt placed a leather journal on the table.
“This is what the key unlocks,” he said, tapping the clasp. “It’s not a building. It’s a part of me.”
Frank hesitated, then opened it.
The pages were filled with Matt’s looping handwriting — tight at first, then loosening over time. Pain gave way to memory. Fear gave way to questions. Then hope. Then something close to peace.
Frank flipped to one of the early entries.
April 14, 2010
I went to school today and saw a police dog at an assembly. He looked like him. But it wasn’t. I wanted to run up and hug him. But I didn’t. I just cried in the bathroom until the bell rang.
Another:
June 6, 2014
Sometimes I wonder if Axel remembers me. If dogs remember smells forever. I still have that bear. It smells like him.
And later:
July 22, 2019
The therapist says I should write to him like he’s still here. But he never felt gone to me.
Frank closed the book.
His throat felt raw.
“I didn’t know,” he said softly.
Matt smiled, faint. “You weren’t supposed to. Until now.”
They spent the next hour going through the journal together, marking pages to reference for the memoir. Frank asked questions. Matt told stories. Some were small — the way Axel had exhaled through his nose like a sigh when Matt finally spoke that first day. Others were bigger — how Matt’s decision to become a postal worker wasn’t random.
“It’s quiet,” he said. “Predictable. And I get to see people’s porches. Sometimes… their dogs.”
Frank smiled.
Matt hesitated, then added, “I leave biscuits for the ones who wait by the door.”
That night, Frank sat at his desk with the photo in hand.
He started writing again.
Some things aren’t meant to be remembered by medals. Some are meant to be buried behind trees, waiting to be found when the soul is ready.
Axel gave me more than protection. He gave me a reason to believe that one act of quiet loyalty can ripple for years. Sometimes through a child’s fear. Sometimes through a man’s grief. Sometimes through both.
Chapter Three was titled: “The Buried Thing.”
He wrote until the sky turned silver.
The next morning, Frank opened the front door to find no rose.
But something new.
A small, hand-carved wooden tag.
On it: a name burned in block letters — AXEL.
And beneath it, scratched into the wood like a promise: STILL HERE.
He stood on the porch, hand wrapped around the tag, heart aching in the best way.
Matt had carved it.
Or maybe someone else who remembered.
But either way — Axel was still watching the door.