My hand was still resting on the cool metal of the screen door handle when I saw the truck pull in. I had been standing there for a good ten minutes, just staring at the empty patch of grass by the west rail.

It was Sunday. It was two o’clock. And for the first time in eight years, the porch was just empty.

The truck was a deep, dusty blue. It crunched over the gravel in my driveway like it was announcing something I didn’t want to hear. The man who got out looked like he had been driving for a long time.

He was wearing a faded ball cap pulled low. He moved with a kind of heavy, careful slowness. When he finally looked up and saw me standing there, he just stopped in the middle of the drive.

I didn’t move. My heart was doing that fluttering thing it does whenever the quiet gets too loud. I just waited.

He walked up the steps, and I noticed the way his boots dragged a little on the wood. He had his hat in one hand, twisting the brim around and around. He looked like he was bracing for a blow.

“Are you the lady who lives here,” he asked. His voice was raspy, like he hadn’t used it much lately.

I nodded because I couldn’t find my own voice. I just wanted him to go away so I could go back to wondering about the dog.

He took a breath and looked past me at the empty space by the west rail. “He told me you saved bacon for him.”

My stomach dropped right through the floorboards. I felt the air leave the porch. “Who,” I managed to say.

“My father,” he said, and then he looked back at me with eyes that were too familiar. “He passed away two weeks ago.”

I felt the world tilt. I sat down on the porch chair because my knees just gave out.

I remember thinking about how cold the air felt, even though it was a perfectly nice day.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t know who he was talking about, but the words felt like the only thing I could offer.

He didn’t sit down. He just kept standing there, looking at that empty spot where the dog used to wait. “He didn’t have much, but he loved that dog,” he said.

I looked at the hedge where the dog always disappeared. I thought about the gray muzzle and the way he would lean against the railing. I thought about how he never begged, just sat there like he was waiting for a signal.

“I didn’t know his name,” I said. “I called him Sunday.”

The man gave a small, sad smile. “That’s funny. He never told me he came here. He just used to disappear every Sunday like clockwork.”