The Dog That Whispered by Jim Kraus Read Free Book Online

nearly palpable. Their energy made Hazel smile—and grow a little wistful as well. Or maybe jealous.
    “Tell you what, I’ll take a twenty-dollar bill for both items. I’m just glad to see the desk gone, to tell you the truth. It won’t fit in my condo and it’s too heavy for me to move any farther.”
    The pair looked at Hazel, then each other, grinning. “It’s a deal. Thanks. Really. Thanks so much. We’re trying to fill our place and neither of us has much money. And we have to save up for wedding rings as well. The preacher said it was okay not to have rings—but we want them…you know…so people know. God knows, which is all that matters, really, but we still want rings.”
    The young woman hurried to the truck, stashed the vase on the front seat, and lowered the tailgate while her husband, or husband-to-be, paid the twenty dollars.
    The two of them hefted the desk up and carried it to the truck, Hazel offering directional advice as they did and a helping hand as they maneuvered it into the open back of the truck. The young woman jumped up with it and shouldered the desk into place, surprising Hazel with her dexterity and strength.
    She didn’t look like she weighed more than a hundred pounds.
    She then busied herself by removing the drawers and stacking them securely, so they wouldn’t fly open on the way home.
    As she pulled out the last drawer, a brown envelope fell out onto the truck bed.
    The young woman picked it up.
    “Are you Hazel? This must be yours.”
    Hazel stepped closer and extended her hand.
    “I am. The desk was my mother’s.”
    “Well, it doesn’t feel like money,” the young woman said, fingering the sealed envelope. “But it obviously belongs to you. It must have been taped to the bottom of a drawer or something.”
    Hazel took it and saw her name printed on the envelope in her mother’s handwriting, plus a date written in large block letters—a date decades earlier.
    “Hey, like a time capsule, huh?” the young man said as he closed the tailgate.
    Hazel slid her finger under the flap; the adhesive had all but disappeared, offering a crinkled rasp as it released.
    A picture fluttered out and fell to the ground. And then a key fell out with a brassy, metallic clink.
    Hazel reached down and picked them both up.
    The black-and-white tones of the photograph had turned sepia. The picture depicted her mother, carrying a handful of flowers, and with a halo of small flowers—violets, perhaps—circling her head, holding hands with a young man in a military uniform. They were both smiling, but the young man had a guarded, apprehensive look in his eyes. Haunted, perhaps.
    Hazel turned the photo over.
    Written in her mother’s expansive, flowery handwriting were two words: Our Wedding .
    The brass key was just as enigmatic. Etched into the key, in small type, was the following:
    #349-H
    And on a small, metal-ringed paper disk, clipped to the key with a small chain, were the words, written in her mother’s handwriting, Umpqua Bank .

    Gretna shuffled toward the brightly lit dining room of the senior citizen complex, joining a handful of other seniors all shuffling toward the same destination. Had they been able to travel at full walking speed, a traffic jam, or even a collision or two, would be the result of their combined fixation on finding a “good” table. But as it was, most of them moved at not much faster than a shuffle, and they seamlessly merged into one relatively docile line of hungry diners.
    Gretna was one of the fortunate ones: Her hearing was still adequate, her vision was decent—not enough to drive, but decent—and her mobility, while compromised slightly, still allowed her to travel faster than most of her fellow seniors. She made a beeline to the farthest table from the entrance and the one closest to the kitchen.
    “Food is warmer at this table. You sit by the entrance and you get icicles in your stewed prunes.”
    She found her favorite spot at her favorite