MISSY

Bob walks Missy, his dead wife's poodle mix.

At this particular lawn here a man comes out.  Bob worries and Missy can tell.  Bob wonders "is this another one come to tell me too clean up after my dog?"

He is tall and athletic Bob notices perhaps only because Bob is not.  Not anymore.  Bob and Jackie lived a long life together, grew old and fat together, maybe in the end their "together" was more silence than anything else but there was comfort and safety and belonging to spare.  Bob misses his wife.

The man smiles and speaks first to Missy.  Missy still wary even as the man crouches and offers the back of his hand for her to smell.  She barely sniffs.  "You can poop on my lawn anytime," he coos.  She demurs.

"She does, all the time!" Bob offers, displaying the baggies he carries in his pocket to retrieve Missy's turds, hoping to reassure that he's not the type to not pick up after her.  The man smiles.  "Lovely day!" he says from his crouch looking up at Bob, squinting in the sunlight which lights his face, and Bob agrees.  There is a sense Bob's not completely connected to consciously that his kneeling down to Bob is somehow the same as offering Missy the back of his hand; he's conveying welcome.  "She's sweet," he says, "nice to see you," and jogs back inside.  Bob feels it was nice to have someone to talk to even for a moment.

Bob and Missy watch Wheel of Fortune as the light fades outside the window to night.  They doze, first chair then bed.  Things go unwashed for a time.  Bob eats a lot of one kind of food before moving on to something else.  This week it's Chef Boyardee.  Jackie always had coupons but it's not that expensive, anyway.  Bob prepares Missy's dinner since she's on a special diet--chicken and veggies most of the time.

Another day Bob and Missy are maybe a little further along the street as the man drives by.  He hangs an elbow out the window of his truck and then waves at Missy and Bob and they wave back.  Later that same night since Bob can't sleep he and Missy walk past the house in the dark.  There is music.  Bob pauses and knows after a moment that someone's playing a piano.  The tune's familiar, Jackie would know.

Missy's leash extends and she sniffs around the tree.  Bob dreams along with the music.  He dances with Jackie again like when they were young and not so tired.    His eyes are closed but he smiles.  Then in his head he's dancing instead now with the man.  And it's a feeling now of a lightness, like of floating.  The man is smiling down at him and the light coronas his head and Bob feels a safety again wash over him.  Soon the man is kissing him but Missy pulls at the cord.

Bob walks Missy home to bed.