PART 4 — Between Two Breaths
Ellen didn’t dare move.
Her hand hovered above Rosie’s ribs, feeling the faint rise and fall—so light it could’ve been wind or wishful thinking. Moth had stopped pacing, but the kitten’s wide eyes never left Rosie’s still body.
Another breath came. Barely.
Ellen whispered, “Stay with me.”
She reached for the dropper bottle on the shelf, the one she’d mixed with extra lavender and a trace of lemon balm. Rosie had never minded it before. Ellen rubbed two drops between her palms and gently pressed them along the fur at Rosie’s temples, down her spine, across the places she knew by heart.
It was all she could do now—no vet would answer this late. And if she tried to drive, she’d lose her.
So she laid down on the floor beside her.
Old bones be damned.
She covered them both with the sunflower blanket. Moth crept in and tucked herself against Rosie’s chest, nose to fur, like she was guarding her heart.
Ellen whispered a name she hadn’t said in years.
“Miles…”
Not out of grief this time.
But because it felt like he should be there too. That somehow, wherever he had gone, he should know Rosie was close to leaving. That she had mattered.
They lay that way till dawn.
—
Rosie didn’t die.
At least, not yet.
By midmorning, her breathing had deepened. Still labored, but steady. She blinked once at Ellen, the way she did after a seizure—slow and confused, as if asking Did it happen again?
Ellen wept quietly into her apron.
She gave Rosie watered-down broth by fingertip, just a few sips, and left the rest untouched on the floor.
She didn’t try to carry her outside.
Instead, she opened the windows wide.
The breeze came through like a hymn, bringing with it the smell of drying lavender and earth. The patch rustled softly, like it was sighing. Like it knew.
—
The next two days passed in hours and halves. Ellen didn’t leave Rosie’s side. The shop orders piled up, untouched. Her phone buzzed once—Becca Morgan checking in—but Ellen let it ring.
She wasn’t ready to speak aloud what was happening.
Not yet.
Rosie slept almost constantly. Moth never left the blanket, except to fetch crickets and drop them beside Rosie’s paws. The kitten didn’t understand that Rosie no longer hunted. But she tried.
It was enough.
Ellen trimmed sachets by candlelight that night. She’d stopped writing notes for them. What words could she offer when her own were spent?
One sachet lay open beside her, unfinished.
She fingered the final shred of Miles’s old work shirt, the last piece she had. She thought of saving it.
But then—
She tucked it inside.
This one would go to someone who didn’t order it. Someone who needed it without asking.
She didn’t know who yet.
But she would know when the time came.
—
On the third morning, Rosie stood up.
Just like that.
Wobbly, yes. But she pushed herself upright and limped to the edge of the blanket. Ellen sat frozen in her chair, hands still dusted in lavender.
Rosie didn’t look back.
She walked—slow, dragging one paw—straight to the door. Moth ran ahead and pawed it twice, like she understood what Rosie was asking.
Ellen opened it.
Rosie stepped onto the porch and paused. The air was warm, filled with birdsong and the soft rhythm of bees already at work.
She looked toward the patch.
Then took one step. And another.
It took her nearly five minutes to cross the lawn.
But when she reached the lavender, she didn’t lie down in the center like before. She didn’t bury her nose or dig for buried cloth.
Instead, she stopped at the edge.
And sat.
Looking outward.
As if she were waiting.
—
Becca came again that afternoon, a fresh batch of lemon cookies in hand. Ellen hadn’t called her—didn’t need to. Somehow, Becca had felt the change.
“She’s still with you,” she said softly, watching Rosie through the window.
“Yes,” Ellen replied. “But it’s different now.”
They sat in silence a while.
Moth chased a shadow across the porch rail. Rosie blinked slowly, ears flicking but unmoving. She seemed… content. Not strong. Not healed. But ready.
“You ever think animals know more than we give them credit for?” Becca asked.
Ellen smiled faintly. “All the time.”
She lifted the unfinished sachet from the table. “I think this one is for you.”
Becca blinked. “For me?”
“She’ll leave soon,” Ellen said, her voice thin as thread. “But you’ll have Peaches. And this. Just a bit of something old that smells like lavender and time.”
Becca’s fingers trembled as she took it. She didn’t ask what was inside. She didn’t need to.
They both understood.
—
That evening, Ellen wrote again.
Not for the shop this time.
She opened the journal Miles had given her their first Christmas in the house—still blank except for one note scribbled in his handwriting: “For things that need keeping.”
She wrote:
“Rosie came to me with burrs in her coat and fear in her bones.
She never asked for anything.
Not even when the pain started.
She just found her place among the lavender, and made it holy.”
She closed the journal.
Moth curled on her lap, and outside, Rosie sat facing the horizon.
She didn’t move as the sky turned the color of soft ash and mauve. Didn’t flinch when a single gust of wind swept across the field and scattered petals into the dusk.
Ellen whispered into the fading light:
“Not yet, girl. But soon.”
And Rosie, without turning, wagged her tail once.