She listened as her eldest whispered his secrets to their dog. Rabby was a good listener and she knew that her son loved that dog more than life itself. Or at least it seemed like that lately. He didn’t know that she had come home early that day as she’d left the car at the auto shop to fix a few things and taken the bus before walking the rest of the way home. Without the car in the driveway it was hard to tell whether she was home or not.
Rabby knew that she was home, but the faithful dog had stayed by the backdoor waiting for her son to come home instead of following her to her room where she’d changed out of her work clothes into more casual clothing. She’d just finished pulling on some sneakers rather than the dressy heels she’d spent the morning in when she’d heard the door open and close, the thump of Casey’s backpack hitting the floor and the quiet ‘wumf’ that Rabby always made whenever Casey buried his face in the dog’s stomach.
Normally, she would have called out a hello, letting her son know that she was home, but something had prompted her to be silent instead.
She didn’t know what Casey was telling their family dog, but she could tell that the recent events had affected him more than she had initially thought.
They’d moved recently and she’d known that he had a hard time making friends. Not because he was unlikable or anything like that, no, most of the people that had been his age had been from families that were of a more transitory nature. No matter when they moved in, they were always gone within a year of their initial move in. None of the other families had any children his age save for two and those boys were more interested in running about and causing mischief which Casey had eschewed.
Her other children, either older or younger by several years than Casey, had friends but never many. Casey had seemed fine spending time with his sisters and their friends just fine up until recently with his entrance into middle school. He no longer joined his sisters and their friends of his own initiative and instead stayed behind at times even when he was invited to join.
Casey’s siblings were worried, very worried, but sometimes things just happened like this. Their mother knew this and knew this well and could only hope and pray that her son’s melancholy would pass just as it had for other members of their family in the past.
Whatever troubles came her son’s way, she knew that Rabby would always be waiting for her son to snuggle up to him and give him the unconditional love that can only come from the heart of a loyal dog.
This was a short sequel to a post I did a while ago for Eclectic Corner #5. My post was No One Knows – Eclectic Corner #5 and it was sad, tugged at my heartstrings and a sequel was asked for, so here’s my attempt at it.
Breathing In 