Adoption Day

By Peter Bowden


The sun was high, and the pavement warm underfoot. Valerie laughed—a bright, easy sound that made the flowers along the fence seem to lean in just to hear it better. In her arms, a small beagle pup squirmed and panted, ears too big for her head, tail too eager to stay still. They named her Willow, because something about her spirit bent and danced like the trees when the wind was gentle.

They walked the shaded path up the driveway, and everything felt new. Valerie held the leash like a promise, and Willow not yet knowing she had found her forever. There would be parks and porch naps, overturned water bowls and a hundred chewed things—but also love, in the deepest, simplest way. The kind that never asks for anything but time and presence.

Years would pass, but this day would stay tucked inside them. In a photo. In a memory. In a soft sigh on a warm spring afternoon.

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