Part 9: The Bench Named Wait
New Iberia, Louisiana – Mid-December 2005
The bench became a ritual.
Every morning before school, Drew would sit on it with his backpack slung over one shoulder, swinging his legs, whispering things into the air. Sometimes Anna would catch a word or two—missed… found… still here.
He never said who he was talking to.
Every afternoon, Thomas would bring a book and read out loud beside it. Not to anyone in particular, just to the space beside him. Steinbeck. Dickinson. His wife’s favorite—Raymond Carver. Quiet stories that left room for breath.
And every evening, as dusk rolled over the fence and the crickets stirred, Caleb lit the porch lantern and wound the music box once, letting the melody drift across the yard.
No howls came.
But the silence was full of company.
One gray morning, Thomas found something tucked under the bench.
A hand-drawn card, folded in half.
On the front, a crayon sketch: Jasper curled into a tight circle, his eyes closed and tail tucked beneath his nose.
Inside, in blocky, uneven handwriting:
“Dear Jasper,
You did a good job waiting.
Now we’ll wait for you.”
– Drew
Thomas held it like scripture.
He didn’t knock that day. Didn’t speak.
He just sat on the bench and wept quietly into his scarf.
Christmas crept in softly that year.
No flashing lights. No inflatable Santas. Just a single string of white bulbs around the porch, and a candle in the window for anyone passing by.
Drew asked if they could decorate the sandbox.
“Just a little,” he said. “Like he’s still watching.”
So they did.
Anna tied a red bow to the music box. Thomas found a tiny wooden dog ornament from years past and nestled it near the Memory Hole. Caleb rigged up a solar garden light nearby so it glowed gently after dark.
On Christmas Eve, Drew placed one final item beneath the oak: a small pine box he’d made in school, inside it a lock of his own hair and a folded drawing of two stick figures—one man, one boy—both with a dog between them.
He buried it carefully.
“I want him to have something of me,” he said. “So when he watches, he remembers.”
That night, snow threatened for the first time in years. Just a whisper of it—fine and slow, drifting down like grace.
Drew, bundled in flannel, looked up from the bench and whispered: “If it snows, it means he’s sending us a memory.”
Anna brushed his hair back. “What kind of memory?”
“One with fur. And waiting.”
They stayed out longer than usual, wrapped in quilts, sipping cider. No one spoke much. Just watched the sky.
And somewhere in the silence between wind and stars, the music box played one soft note.
No one had touched it.
But no one was surprised.
Part 10: The Last Note in the Box
New Iberia, Louisiana – Christmas Morning, 2005
It snowed.
Not enough to blanket the ground—but enough to dust the sandbox like powdered sugar and catch in Drew Sullivan’s eyelashes when he opened the back door before dawn.
He stood barefoot on the porch, blinking into the soft white hush, holding the music box tight to his chest. Behind him, the house was still. No clatter of pots. No creak of stairs. Just the thin song of wind weaving through the trees and the porch light casting its familiar amber glow.
He stepped outside without a word.
And there—on the bench named Wait—was the red leash.
Coiled. Unmoved since Jasper’s last breath.
But beside it, nestled gently in the snowfall, was a single pinecone.
Fresh. Still sticky with sap.
Drew’s eyes widened.
He turned slowly toward the oak tree.
And he saw them: faint paw prints leading from the back fence to the sandbox. They were shallow, scattered, and already fading in the light flurry—but unmistakable.
Jasper had come back. If only for a moment. If only in the way memories do.
Anna found her son sitting in the sandbox just after sunrise, the music box resting beside him, the leash looped around one arm like a ribbon.
She didn’t speak.
She simply sat beside him, the snow melting in her hair.
“Do you see the prints?” he asked.
Anna followed his gaze. Then nodded.
“I think he wanted us to know,” Drew whispered.
Anna’s voice cracked. “Know what?”
“That he made it home.”
Thomas Rourke arrived an hour later with a thermos of coffee and two paper-wrapped parcels. One for Drew. One for the sandbox.
Drew opened his first: a small, carved dog figurine—curved from cedar, smooth in the belly, and missing one ear.
“I didn’t want it to be perfect,” Thomas said.
Drew smiled. “He wasn’t.”
For the sandbox, Thomas placed something simpler: a river stone, smooth and round, with the word still etched in its center.
Still waiting.
Still watching.
Still loved.
That afternoon, they gathered beside the oak tree.
Drew carried the music box. Anna carried the journal. Thomas held the lavender quilt.
Caleb brought a spade.
“Are you sure?” he asked gently.
Drew nodded. “We’re not burying him. Just planting the things that remember him best.”
So they opened a space in the Memory Hole—wider now, fuller. Drew placed the music box inside, one last time.
“I think the last note was his goodbye,” he said.
Thomas folded the quilt and laid it beside it.
Anna slipped in the journal.
And Caleb, with care, placed the river stone on top.
No speeches.
Just stillness.
And the light crunch of snow underfoot as they stepped back.
That night, the stars burned clear above Louisiana.
No clouds. No wind. Just the hush of a year turning its last page.
The porch light stayed on.
But not because they were waiting anymore.
This time, it stayed on because love—real love—always leaves a light behind.
Just in case something ever finds its way back.
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[End of Story]
In loving memory of all the dogs who waited, and the hearts who waited with them.