The same old head tucked beneath her chin.
Megan stayed crouched longer than her knees appreciated.
Susan turned away for a moment, partly to give them privacy and partly because she was crying herself.
Gerald carried Rufus's food, medication, blanket, and bed to Scott's SUV. He had written the feeding schedule on a sheet of yellow legal paper even though Megan already knew most of it. At the bottom he had added a note about the dog's hips.
Likes the warm side of the couch in the morning. Still watches the driveway around 5:40.
Megan read that line twice.
On the drive home, Rufus lay across the back seat.
Every few minutes Megan turned to look at him.
Once, at a red light, she reached between the seats and rested her fingers against his front paw.
Rufus did not move away.
Starting over was not as clean as reunion videos make it appear.
Megan could not return to the apartment she had left. Her brother let her stay in his small rental house while she worked through employment requirements and probation conditions. Rufus had to learn another floor plan, another yard, another set of neighborhood sounds.
Megan had to rebuild routines too.
She found part-time work first, then a full-time office position at a building supply company. She attended every required appointment. She kept paperwork in a blue folder by the kitchen door because after losing control of her life once, organization stopped feeling tedious.
Rufus returned to his own habits faster than she did.
Within a week he had chosen a sleeping place beside the couch.
Within two, he knew which cabinet held his medication.
And almost immediately, he started noticing when Megan came home.
Her new job ended at five.
Most evenings she reached the house between 5:35 and 5:45.
Scott noticed it first.
At about 5:35, Rufus raised his head.
At 5:38, he often stood.
At the sound of Megan's car turning into the drive, his tail began striking the side of the couch.
The old routine had found them again in a different house.
Megan never claimed Rufus understood where she had been.
She never said he forgave her, because forgiveness is a human word carrying meanings nobody can confidently assign to a dog.
What she knew was observable.
He recognized her.
He sought her out.
He resumed waiting for her.
And on one afternoon inside a county visitation room, when two layers of glass made those few inches feel impossibly wide, he had placed one paw where her hand was.
The short phone video of that moment eventually circulated among volunteers and then beyond them. Viewers saw Megan's exhausted face, Rufus's gray muzzle, her palm against the barrier, and his paw meeting it from the opposite side.