🐾 PART 7 — “The Reunion We Never Got”
Rockport, Missouri | Two Weeks Later
The story was almost done.
Frank could feel it, like the change in weather — subtle at first, then all at once. Every chapter he wrote came faster now, like Axel had waited long enough and didn’t want to waste time with hesitation.
Matt was helping more, too — typing up the handwritten pages, scanning old photos, even sitting with Frank on the porch late into the evening, reading drafts out loud.
Gus sat by their feet each night, head resting on his front paws, rising only when Frank said Axel’s name. As if he knew it meant something sacred.
“Do you ever wish he’d made it?” Matt asked one night, voice low.
Frank didn’t answer right away.
He knew what Matt meant. Not in the general sense. But that night. The warehouse. The gunshot. The stillness afterward.
“Every day,” Frank said. “I used to dream about it. That I turned the corner faster. That the bullet missed. That I said something different on the radio, or just left him in the car.”
Matt nodded slowly.
Frank leaned forward, arms resting on his knees.
“But wishing doesn’t fix anything,” he added. “It just keeps your heart frozen in a moment that already ended.”
He paused.
“But telling… that sets it free.”
Frank hadn’t cried at Axel’s funeral.
Not in front of anyone.
He remembered the folded flag, the bagpipes, the ceremonial badge placed on the casket. He remembered every officer standing in line, hand over heart, as if Axel could see them from wherever he’d gone.
What he didn’t remember — or maybe never allowed himself to — was the feeling in his chest when they closed the lid.
That moment was starting to come back now.
And it hurt.
The next morning, Frank got a call from someone he hadn’t heard from in years.
“Frank Dillard?” the voice asked. “This is Dr. Kimball. I was the veterinarian for the department back in the day. Don’t know if you remember me—”
“Course I do.”
“Well… I got something here you might want to see.”
Frank hesitated. “What is it?”
“A box. Showed up yesterday. No return address. But it’s got your name on it. And Axel’s tag.”
Frank drove straight there.
The clinic hadn’t changed much. New paint, maybe. Different secretary. But the smell — antiseptic and fur and memory — that was the same.
Dr. Kimball, now grayer and thinner, handed him the box.
“I didn’t open it,” he said. “Didn’t feel right.”
Frank nodded.
He sat in the truck for a long time before lifting the lid.
Inside were two things.
The first: a cassette tape, labeled in careful handwriting: “Axel – Ride-Alongs”
The second: a small envelope.
Inside the envelope, a note:
I used to ride with you on the scanner. My dad worked dispatch. I heard Axel’s name every night. I recorded his calls like stories. I always wondered how it ended.
I’m glad you’re telling it now.
Frank stared at the tape in his hand.
He didn’t even know anyone had been listening back then. He thought it was just him and Axel — out there in the dark, chasing things no one saw, answering calls that didn’t always make the paper.
He borrowed a cassette player from the clinic. Drove home.
Slid the tape in.
Pressed play.
Static. A pause.
Then:
“Unit 4-7 en route. K9 Axel deployed.”
His own voice.
From years ago.
Steady. Sharp. Younger.
Then Axel’s bark — short, clipped, eager. Ready.
Another clip.
“K9 has located the suspect.”
“K9 remains on scene. Child found.”
Frank listened for hours. Some calls were routine. Some intense. But through it all, there was always that bark — cutting through silence, saying, I’m here.
When the final clip ended, Frank pressed pause and wiped his eyes.
He felt like he’d just heard his partner’s voice again.
That night, Matt came by with Gus and two coffees.
Frank played a clip for him — one from the call on April 14, 2007.
“Dog’s in the bedroom. He’s found the child. Child appears unharmed.”
Matt sat perfectly still.
Gus tilted his head.
“That’s… me,” Matt whispered. “That’s me.”
Frank nodded, emotion thick in his chest.
“It’s the closest thing we’ll ever have to a reunion,” he said. “You. Him. Me. All in one call.”
Matt looked at Gus, then at Frank.
“I think he waited for this,” he said.
Frank nodded again.
“So did I.”
The next chapter wrote itself.
We didn’t get the reunion we wanted. No final walk. No slow goodbye. But we got something better: memory that lives in other people. In letters. In photos. In a cassette tape recorded by a kid with big ears and a bigger heart.
Axel’s not just in the story. He is the story.
They titled the chapter: “The Reunion We Never Got.”
And it broke something open in both of them — not grief, exactly. Not sorrow.
More like gratitude.
The kind that comes when you realize someone you loved didn’t really leave.
They just changed shape.
Into memory.
Into story.
Into legacy.
The next morning, Frank opened the door.
There was no rose.
Just a small box.
Inside:
A collar.
Old. Frayed.
Axel’s.
And on a slip of paper beneath it:
“Now tell the part where he never really left.”
Frank touched the collar.
Closed his eyes.
And whispered: “I will.”