Part 6: The Dog With the Bandage
The storm passed by Sunday, but the lot still smelled of wet leaves and soft earth on Thursday.
Marie arrived early.
She unfolded all the chairs—hers, Thomas’s, and the two spares she kept in the truck now. The cat, “Sergeant Pebbles,” as Micah called her, had taken to sleeping in Marie’s lap almost immediately, no coaxing needed. Her fur was damp from dew that morning, but she didn’t seem to mind.
The raccoon didn’t show.
That alone made the air feel thinner.
Dr. Hayes stepped out with a clipboard and waved. “You beat me again.”
“I don’t sleep in much,” Marie replied. “Not anymore.”
He looked toward the Corolla. Empty.
“That raccoon ever miss a week?”
Marie shook her head. “First time.”
Dr. Hayes frowned. “Might’ve been its last.”
Marie didn’t ask for more. Some creatures just slip away.
—
Around nine, a new car arrived.
It was a teal Subaru with back windows smeared in dust, like a child had drawn circles with their fingers.
The engine stayed on a long time.
Eventually, a woman stepped out—mid-thirties, wiry, nervous—and opened the rear door.
Out came a dog.
A pit bull. Gray, older, one hind leg dragging slightly. Its front paw was wrapped in a blue bandage, stiff with dried blood near the edge.
Micah gasped softly. “He’s got a hurt sock.”
Marie knelt down. “Poor boy.”
The woman introduced herself as Haley. The dog’s name was Scout. She said she’d found him limping near a highway turnoff last week, barely alive. No collar. No microchip.
“He’s been through something,” she said. “Vet thinks he was thrown out. Or left.”
Marie crouched near Scout and extended her hand.
He sniffed. Backed up. Then took one step forward and sat—slow, deliberate, the way old dogs do when their memories ache louder than their bones.
“He follows me everywhere now,” Haley said. “Won’t even sleep unless he can see me.”
Micah offered him a cracker.
Scout didn’t take it, but he didn’t growl either.
Just looked around.
At the cars. At the empty Corolla.
At Ellie’s blanket folded in the footwell.
Then, slowly, he limped over and placed his chin on Marie’s knee.
—
That day, something shifted in the lot.
Haley didn’t leave. She stayed, talking softly to Scout as he dozed near the chair once used by Thomas.
The cat curled against his side like they’d always known each other.
Micah drew a new page in his sketchbook—Scout, with a blue bandage and tired eyes.
He labeled him: Captain Scout.
Marie smiled. “Captain?”
“He looks like someone who kept watch,” Micah explained. “Even when no one came back.”
—
Scout’s leg wasn’t healing fast. Dr. Hayes offered treatment—free of charge, he insisted. Haley worked two jobs and couldn’t afford regular visits.
“We’ve got a fund,” he said. “People donate for strays like him.”
Haley hesitated, pride in her eyes. Then looked at Scout—curled in the waiting room, bandage half-chewed—and nodded.
“I’ll bring him every Thursday.”
Marie heard that and felt a quiet joy.
She didn’t say it aloud, but something about Scout’s presence made the lot feel whole again.
Not replaced. Not healed.
But bridged.
—
Two weeks passed.
Scout came each time.
The parrot returned once, then vanished.
The pigeon stopped showing up.
The raccoon never came back.
But something about the way Scout lay with his chin on the pavement, eyes half-closed, breathing steady—it brought calm to the others.
Stray dogs wandered in and out now and then. One tried to snap at the cat and was quietly chased off by Scout, who didn’t bark, only stood between them and stared until the intruder left.
“He’s like a bouncer,” Liza laughed.
“No,” Marie said. “He’s more like a chaplain.”
—
By Week Twelve, people started coming on purpose.
A woman in scrubs brought her beagle who’d lost a toe to cancer.
A teenage boy with headphones carried a ferret in his hoodie.
An elderly couple parked a rusted camper by the curb and opened a side door—revealing three senior rescue dogs in sweaters. The woman offered hot cocoa from a thermos and asked if “this was the place with the golden ghost.”
Marie blinked. “Excuse me?”
The woman smiled. “Someone told us about a golden retriever who used to lie by the passenger seat. Said animals still gather where she waited.”
Marie looked down at Ellie’s blanket. Still in the footwell. Still folded.
“She was mine,” Marie whispered.
The woman nodded, pressing the cocoa into her hand. “Then you understand.”
Marie did.
—
One morning, Scout didn’t want to get up.
Haley called Marie in a panic. “He’s shaking. But there’s no fever. He’s just… frozen.”
Marie drove over.
She found him lying near the back door, eyes wide, breath tight. The blue bandage had been replaced, but he kept licking the scar beneath.
Marie sat down beside him. Whispered softly.
“It’s not time yet,” she said. “Not today.”
Scout blinked. Once. Then again.
Haley clutched the leash, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t lose him too.”
Marie laid a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re not alone,” she said.
And from the backseat of her truck, Ellie’s collar clinked—soft, hollow, a bell without wind.
—
Later that week, Dr. Hayes examined Scout.
“He’s not dying,” he confirmed. “But something’s stuck inside him. Something old.”
He paused, scratching his beard. “It might be fear. It might be memory.”
He handed Haley a brochure for a therapy group. “For animals who’ve seen too much.”
Haley folded it. “We’ll try.”
Marie offered her another chair.
“You already belong here.”
That Thursday, Scout sat under the maple tree the entire morning—head high, legs tucked, as if guarding invisible guests.
And for the first time since Ellie passed, Marie didn’t flinch when someone mentioned her name.
Because it wasn’t about loss anymore.
It was about the ones who stayed.