Last Sunday, instead of leaving when I usually did, I hung back and watched from a distance as the dog finally stood up, stretched, and started trotting toward the cemetery gates.
I followed him.
I don’t fully know why.
Something in me just needed to know where he went.
He moved with total purpose, never hesitating at a single turn, cutting through streets I didn’t recognize, past a shuttered gas station, down a narrow alley behind a row of houses I’d never had a reason to drive past before.
Nearly twenty minutes later, he stopped in front of a small, run-down house at the very end of a dead-end street in Cedar Hollow, Indiana, scratched twice at the front door, and sat down to wait.
The door creaked open a few inches, and I stopped walking entirely.
Standing in the doorway was a young woman I had never met.
She was maybe twenty-two.
She had tired, kind eyes, and she was holding a toddler on her hip.
