Part 5: The Chair That Stayed Empty
The old man’s name, Marie would learn later, was Thomas Greer.
Retired Marine. Widower. A man who whittled wooden birds in his garage and still ironed his jeans.
His dog—Muffin—was sixteen, nearly blind, and diabetic.
“I check her blood sugar three times a day,” he said, almost defensively, as if expecting someone to doubt him.
No one did.
That Thursday, Muffin slept through most of the morning, her little body curled on a pillow decorated with dancing lighthouses.
Thomas sat quietly, eyes tracking the sky more than the lot. He had the stillness of someone who’d stood watch in deserts and jungles, now guarding something gentler.
Marie gave him her extra coffee lid. He took it with a hand that trembled just slightly at the wrist.
“I didn’t think this was real,” he said after a while.
“I wasn’t sure either,” Marie replied.
They didn’t speak much more. But when Thomas packed up to leave, he left his folding chair behind.
“Won’t need it next week,” he said, patting the pillow. “But maybe someone else will.”
—
The following Thursday, he didn’t come.
Neither did Muffin.
Marie noticed the empty space right away, and though she didn’t say it aloud, the silence in Lot B felt just a little heavier. The chair was still there, folded neatly beneath the maple.
Micah and Liza arrived with peanut butter crackers and juice boxes.
The boy asked, “Where’s the man with the squinty dog?”
Marie only said, “Home, I think.”
But the raccoon looked over, and for the first time, Marie saw its paw twitch—like it was reaching for something.
Later that afternoon, Dr. Hayes stepped outside, rubbed his arms against the chill, and walked over.
“He passed,” he said quietly. “Thomas.”
Marie’s eyes filled, but she didn’t blink.
“Heart failure. Went peacefully, they said. Holding her.”
Marie reached for the collar around her mirror, the tag cool in her fingers.
“He said he didn’t need the chair anymore,” she murmured.
Dr. Hayes nodded. “Keep it out here. Somebody will.”
They didn’t move it. Just unfolded it and left it beside Marie’s.
And for the rest of the day, no one sat there.
But everyone glanced that way now and then—like the air still remembered him.
—
By the eighth Thursday, Marie had grown used to the rhythm.
Some weeks, the animals changed.
A pigeon with only one eye took to perching on the power line above her truck. A pug in a stroller barked at nothing until Micah fed it crackers. The cat—still three-legged and aging fast—began limping straight to Marie’s lap as if it had belonged there forever.
Others were constants.
The raccoon never missed a week. The parrot returned—just once—its cage parked in a different car, with a different driver. But it spoke again. Just two words: “Good dog.”
Micah drew pictures of each visitor. He’d started a notebook labeled The Lot Animals, complete with pages of careful sketches and imagined names.
He called the raccoon “Lieutenant Whiskers.”
The cat? “Sergeant Pebbles.”
The parrot? “Dr. Mango.”
Marie had to stifle a laugh the day he presented them. But Liza cried quietly, pressing her fingers to her lips.
“We should frame them,” Marie suggested.
Micah nodded seriously. “They’re like veterans. They served.”
No one corrected him.
Because in a way, they had.
—
One Thursday, a local reporter came.
He didn’t announce himself right away. Just sat in a parked car at the far end of the lot, scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad.
Marie noticed him when he leaned out to take a photo—just as the cat, the raccoon, and the pigeon happened to be clustered within the same patch of light.
She walked over, slow but firm.
“Can I help you?”
The man smiled sheepishly. “Just observing. I heard about the animals. Someone left a note on our newsroom desk. Said a dog cemetery was forming in Lot B.”
“It’s not a cemetery,” Marie said. “It’s a… gathering.”
“A vigil?” he offered.
Marie looked over her shoulder.
Micah was sitting cross-legged on the pavement, holding the cat like it was glass.
Liza was sketching something in the corner of a receipt.
The raccoon was asleep on the hood of an abandoned car.
“It’s just Thursday,” she said finally.
The reporter nodded, closing his notebook. “Mind if I come back?”
Marie thought for a moment. Then shook her head. “Bring coffee if you do.”
He did.
—
It was the tenth week when the storm came.
Heavy rain, the kind that floods small roads and makes porch steps slick.
Marie considered skipping. Her hip had been aching for days, and Ellie’s old blanket had started to smell of time and dust.
But at 7:45 a.m., she was already in the truck.
The windshield wipers groaned, fighting the downpour. She parked as always—third from the end—and sat watching the storm lash the lot.
To her surprise, the raccoon came.
Soaked, shivering, but present. It climbed under the Corolla and waited.
Then Micah’s car arrived.
Liza helped him out with a large umbrella, his drawings sealed in a ziplock bag. They ran to Marie’s truck and climbed in without asking.
She didn’t mind.
Soon, the cat joined too—somehow appearing on the hood of the truck, drenched but unbothered.
They sat inside, windows fogging, watching the rain dance on the glass.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Micah whispered, “Do you think dogs know we’re waiting?”
Marie turned to him slowly.
“I think they’re the ones who wait for us,” she said.
And as the thunder rumbled overhead, no one disagreed.