People brought flowers, balloons, photographs, and small decorations.
Yet this dog always chose Caleb.
One day, I asked the groundskeeper about him.
His name was Edwin, an older man who had worked at the cemetery for so long that he seemed to recognize nearly every regular visitor.
I nodded toward the dog.
“Does he belong to someone?”
Edwin glanced over.
He shrugged.
The dog had been showing up for a while, he said, but nobody seemed to know where he came from.
“Nobody feeds him?”
“Not that I know of.”
“He doesn’t stay here?”
Edwin shook his head.
That answer only made me more curious.
I started watching the dog whenever I visited.
He always seemed calm.
But every so often, he would stare toward the cemetery entrance as if he were waiting for someone.
Then, before I left, he would disappear.
I never saw where he went.
One Sunday, I walked back to my car and stopped beside the driver’s door without opening it.
I looked toward the cemetery.
The dog was still there.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, that image stayed with me all week.
Then came the Sunday when I finally decided to find out where he went.
Instead of leaving at my usual time, I stayed behind and watched from a distance.
Eventually, the dog stood.
He stretched.
Then he started trotting toward the cemetery gates.
I followed him.
I still don’t completely know why.
Something inside me simply needed to know where he went.
I kept enough distance between us that he wouldn’t notice me.
At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.
He crossed the road outside the cemetery and continued along the sidewalk.
I expected him to wander.
He didn’t.
He moved with complete purpose.
He never hesitated at a turn.
He cut through streets I didn’t recognize, passed a shuttered gas station, and continued down a narrow alley behind a row of houses I had never had any reason to visit.
More than once, I considered turning around.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.
I was a grown woman following a stray dog through unfamiliar streets on a Sunday afternoon.
But every time I slowed down, the dog kept moving.
There was something about the certainty in his steps that kept pulling me forward.
The neighborhood gradually changed.
The lawns became smaller.
Paint peeled from porch railings.
Several cars sat beneath faded covers.
A bicycle missing its front wheel leaned against one fence.
The dog crossed another street without even slowing down.
I hurried after him.
“Where are you going?” I whispered.
Of course, he didn’t answer.
Nearly 20 minutes later, he stopped in front of a small, run-down house at the very end of a dead-end street.
He scratched twice at the front door.
Then he sat down and waited.
I stopped near the sidewalk.
My heartbeat had quickened.
The house was narrow and weathered.
One shutter hung crooked.
The porch steps were cracked along the
