They used to do this when my mom held me.”
It caught me off guard. I’d never heard him talk about his mom like that. I knew she had passed when he was a teenager, but details were always scarce. Just a photo on the fridge and a tightness in his voice when holidays rolled around.
He pulled the brim of his cap lower and cleared his throat. “She used to hold me on the same couch. Lacey would curl up next to her like this. It’s like they remember.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Dogs don’t forget love,” I said quietly.
That night, we slept in shifts. Or at least tried to. But every time I woke up, Max was by the crib. Just lying there, ears perked. Like he’d taken it upon himself to stand guard.
By morning, something between all of us had shifted. Like we were no longer just a couple with dogs. We were a family.
