The younger officer whispered, his eyes glassy, “These aren’t missing dogs.”
Dozens of dogs.
Dad stood behind me and answered in the same plain voice he used to ask if I wanted toast.
“Nobody wanted the old ones.”
That landed harder. The older officer took off his hat. Outside, the yard had gone so quiet.
Then Dad added, without raising his voice, “And I wasn’t going to let those poor creatures go without someone sitting with them at the end.”
I kept walking as the room kept unfolding.
The older officer took off his hat.
There was a shelf in the corner holding collars, tags, and worn toys, each one labeled in masking tape with a name and year.
A rubber duck. A frayed rope. A tennis ball gone soft with teeth marks. The kind of things you keep only when love has nowhere else to go.
