The house used to hum with him. The soft clicks of claws on tile, the sigh before sleep, the thump-thump of a tail against the floor. Morning light would spill across his white fur, and for a moment, everything golden belonged to us. Cooper—my deaf old dog somehow heard my heart. I’d whisper anyway, low voice, lips close to his ear, Good boy, I love you, and he’d lift his head like the words were a touch.
Now the house holds its breath. The air feels too still, too sharp around the edges. Sometimes I think I hear him—the faint rhythm of paws, a phantom shift of weight—but it’s only memory rearranged itself into sound. Moose runs through the yard now, wild and loud, joy spilling from him like water, but even his bark carries an echo of what came before.
Loss has a sound, I think. It’s the hush after laughter. The quiet spot in the air where something once lived and loved. When the wind moves through the trees, soft and sudden, I hear it—the ghost of a sigh, the memory of a tail. And for a breath, it’s all back again: the warmth, the rhythm, the heartbeat beneath my hand.