Tommy solved that by sending photos.
He was not a man who texted much. Darlene had taught him only what was necessary: answer the children, answer the grandchildren, and do not accidentally put photographs into family group threads unless you are prepared for more replies than you want. But over those weeks he took more pictures than he had in the previous three years combined. Buster on the porch after breakfast. Buster sprawled in the shade beside the hydrangeas. Buster with his nose in the plastic tub of chicken and kibble Darlene had mixed for him. Buster with the truck in the background on Monday morning, looking toward the road as though the whole county schedule was late until proven otherwise.
Karen showed every picture to Evelyn.
According to Karen, one image in particular stayed by her mother’s bed for days: Buster standing at the fence beside Tommy’s orange-shirted knee while the garbage truck idled at the road behind them.
“She says he looks like he’s inspecting your work,” Karen told him.
“He probably is.”
The longer Evelyn remained away, the more certain details of her life revealed themselves through Buster’s habits. He paced if the kitchen radio was off at dusk, so Tommy began turning it on low each evening—an AM station out of Columbus with farm reports and old country songs. He slept better if one of Evelyn’s cardigans was left on the rug in the mudroom. He did not like thunder anymore. He still expected a biscuit on Monday, because somewhere in the years before Tommy’s involvement, Evelyn had clearly made a practice of rewarding him for surviving the indignity of garbage collection.
Once Tommy discovered the biscuit tin in the cabinet by the coffee mugs, he did not break tradition.
There are people who would call this anthropomorphizing, or overattachment, or one more example of Americans applying human feelings to animals. Tommy had no use for any of those descriptions. What he understood was simpler. An old dog with an old person depends on consistency the same way old people do. You change too many things at once, and they begin to believe the floor itself is no longer where it ought to be.
So he changed as little as possible.
He fed Buster on Evelyn’s schedule. He turned the radio on at Evelyn’s hour. He left the porch light burning until he locked up, because Karen said her mother always did. He even moved the water bowl back to the same side of the steps after washing it because the dog looked confused when it stood elsewhere.
The county route continued all around this private routine. Monday trash still needed lifting. Tuesday and Wednesday runs still wound through the far end of the district where farmhouses sat a quarter-mile from the road and residents tied old feed sacks around the handles of broken bins. Tommy’s life did not stop because Evelyn was in rehab or because Buster had briefly become part of his day twice over.
But something in his understanding of the work sharpened.
Sanitation drivers, like mail carriers and propane drivers and school bus drivers, inhabit a peculiar category of public witness. They do not enter most people’s lives, but they pass close enough to register when life shifts. A cart not moved. Newspapers accumulating on a step. A porch always lit and suddenly dark. These things are not dramatic until one day they are.
Tommy had known that in the abstract. Buster made him feel it.
Three weeks after the Monday when the dog first failed to come out, Tommy was lifting a cart two roads over when his phone vibrated in the truck’s console. It was Karen.
“They’re sending Mom home Friday.”
Tommy lowered the arm and pulled forward.
“How’s she doing?”
“She’ll have oxygen for a while. Walker full-time. Home physical therapy. She’s mad at everyone, so I think that means she’s stronger.”
“That sounds like Miss Evelyn.”
Karen laughed.
“She keeps asking whether Buster still barks at the truck.”
“He’s on the schedule.”