Sunday Mornings with Arthur

Margaret placed the two pills beside her coffee cup—the vitamin D her doctor insisted upon, and the memory of something else she couldn't quite grasp at 7 AM. Arthur, her golden retriever of twelve years, rested his chin on her knee, his gray muzzle matching the silver that had replaced her chestnut years ago.

Outside her window, the neighbor's grandson Lucas staggered toward the bus stop, head bent over his phone, moving with that zombie-like shuffle Margaret had watched teenagers perfect for decades. Poor boy, she thought. Sleepwalking through the most magical years.

"Remember when we were that young?" she whispered to Arthur, who thumped his tail against the floorboards.

Her thoughts drifted to Sarah, her best friend from nursing school. They'd spent forty years exchanging birthday cards and Christmas letters, until the Alzheimer's had taken Sarah's vocabulary piece by piece, like a puzzle scattered by careless hands. Margaret still visited, even when Sarah's eyes held only polite recognition.

The vitamin went down with a swallow of coffee. Margaret had stopped questioning why certain pills mattered. At eighty-two, you learned that some things just were.

Arthur shifted, whining softly. His joints ached when it rained. Margaret understood. Her knees clicked like knitting needles every morning now. She rubbed behind his ears, the way he'd always loved since he was a clumsy puppy chewing her favorite slippers.

"We're quite the pair, aren't we?" she smiled. "The zombie and her faithful companion."

Arthur licked her hand. His devotion hadn't faded with time, unlike so many other things. Love, she'd learned, lived in the small consistencies—the morning coffee ritual, the daily vitamin, the dog who still waited by the door even though he could barely jump into the car anymore.

Margaret picked up her pen and opened the blank card she'd bought for Sarah. In the end, what remained wasn't the grand adventures or the achievements they'd once chased. What remained were the small, quiet graces: the friend who'd held your hand through broken hearts and broken bones, the dog who greeted each morning like a gift, the vitamins that promised another day to witness them all.

She wrote: *Still here. Still remembering. Still loving you.*

Arthur sighed, content, as Margaret sealed the envelope.