Benny is blind, missing several teeth, and walks with the careful determination of a tiny old man who refuses to admit he’s getting older.
“Don’t eat the flowers,” I told him.
Naturally, he immediately tried.
I sighed.
“You would’ve liked Frank. He would’ve slipped you bacon under the table and then blamed me when you gained weight.”
Benny’s tail tapped against my ankle.
I’d adopted him eight months earlier from a shelter.
A volunteer had warned me that almost everyone passed him by.
“People want puppies,” she’d explained. “Whenever someone walks away, Benny starts crying.”
I understood that feeling better than I wanted to.
After Frank died, I learned how unbearably quiet a home could become when someone you loved never walked through the door again.
So I brought Benny home.
He didn’t cure my grief.
He simply made sure I wasn’t carrying it alone.
