EPISODE 10 — The Road Home
A year to the day after the water glass, Tank rode out to Miller’s Curve.
He hadn’t been back in twenty-one years. The road was repaved, the ditch filled in, a guardrail where there’d been nothing. It looked like any other curve. That was the strangest part — the worst night of his life had happened on an ordinary piece of asphalt.
Buddy — the new Buddy, all eighty pounds of joyful ridiculousness — rode in the sidecar Tank had bolted on for him. Goggles on. Ears flying. Living his best life.
Tank parked. Walked to the guardrail with the dog. Stood there a while.
“Hey, old friend,” he said quietly. “I want you to meet somebody.”
Buddy the Second sniffed the guardrail, sneezed, and sat on Tank’s foot.
“I was nineteen and stupid for ten seconds,” Tank said. “And I’ve been smart about it exactly never, until this year.” He scratched the dog’s ears. “A wise old sergeant told me the guilt was lying. That it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t believe him for about six months.”
He looked at the lake, frozen at the edges, just like that winter.
“But here’s what I know now,” Tank said. “You’d have liked him. The sergeant. And you’d have loved Rex — though he’d have eaten your bacon, so maybe not.” A wet laugh. “And this goofball here — he’s got your name, and your seat, and your ham. The good ham.”
The wind moved through the pines. Somewhere, a truck changed gears on the highway.
Tank stood there until the sun dropped. Then he swung onto the Harley, settled Buddy in the sidecar, and rode home — to the diner, to Tuesday, to the booth where a veteran and a war dog were waiting.
The wall of noise was gone. In its place: an engine, a dog’s happy bark, and twenty-one years of quiet, finally at peace.
THE END ❤
