📕 Part 5 – Winter with Company
November 11th, 2022 – Danner Hollow, Missouri
The first snow came soft, like an apology.
Flakes clung to the porch rails and grocery sign, turned the old truck into a powdered ghost.
Martha stood at the window with her mug — same chipped one Tom used to use.
The dogs were out there. All three. Sleeping like they owned the place.
She didn’t stop them anymore.
Didn’t even pretend she minded.
She’d stopped calling them strays sometime last week.
Didn’t say it out loud, of course. But in her head, she’d given up the fight.
Gramps still didn’t move much — just shifted from blanket to sun patch.
Bud was better. Not good. But better. The cough had eased. He walked steadier.
And Skippy? That fool dog now followed her from room to room like a shadow that wagged.
She started closing the store early. Sometimes skipped opening altogether if her knees ached too much.
Nobody complained.
Ellison’s Grocery hadn’t been about groceries for a long time.
Now, it was about warmth. Quiet. And three bowls waiting beside the heater.
One night, power flickered out. Wind howled hard enough to shake the siding.
Martha lit a single candle in the window.
The dogs huddled close — Gramps at her feet, Bud at her side, Skippy curled into her lap like he still weighed five pounds.
She whispered to no one, “It’s not the same without the hum.”
Then looked down at the dogs and added, “But it ain’t bad, neither.”
The days blurred. November slid into early December.
She started noticing things.
Gramps would grunt when he stood, like an old man getting off the couch.
Bud slept longer. Didn’t finish meals some days.
And Skippy — wild as he was — had stopped biting her shoelaces.
He’d grown. Still dopey. But watching.
Like he knew.
One morning, she pulled out a weathered photo album from behind the register.
Inside were old shots: Tom in front of the truck, Duke as a pup chewing on a broom handle, her younger self in an apron stained with cherry syrup.
She left the album open on the table.
Later that night, she caught Skippy sniffing at the pages.
He sneezed. Then curled up beside it like he knew those stories mattered.
Martha didn’t say a word.
Just smiled and turned the page.
The first real snowstorm came a week before Christmas.
Buried the porch knee-deep.
Martha didn’t let them sleep outside that night. Not even Gramps.
She rolled out old rugs in the storeroom, brought in their bowls, and laid towels on the heater vents.
They shuffled in slowly — unsure at first — then one by one collapsed like soldiers coming off shift.
She stayed up with them, sipping tea and reading an old farm magazine by flashlight.
At one point, Bud leaned his head on her shin and sighed.
And Martha whispered, “I know, old man. Me too.”
By New Year’s, she’d added tags to their collars.
GRAMP
BUD
SKIP
She didn’t like using full names. Said they took too long to shout.
But in truth, she just liked the way they sounded when she called out the back door.
Three short syllables.
Each one heavy with meaning now.
That winter, no customers came.
But the bell above the door still rang — every time the wind blew, or when a paw nudged it just right.
And each time, Martha looked up, heart steady, and said the same thing:
“You boys hungry?”