The Expansion of the Universe

Fifty-Four-Point-Five | "Can I do anything for you?"

~Outside POV~

There was a man who visited the cemetery every week, on Sunday, without fail.

He was always dressed in black, and he always had a dog with him.

Jessica only knew this because her daily run, which she completed just after seven in the mornings, took her directly past the small cemetery connected to the local Baptist church, and he was only ever there with his dog on Sundays. The dog was beautiful, with a long, silky coat of brown and white fur that clearly received extensive care.

She couldn't help but wonder who it was that he visited. By the time she looped back around on her run, about an hour after she would have first passed him, he would be gone. She couldn't tell how old he was, either. She was too far to ever get a good look at his facial features, and while his lean build spoke of youth, the slump in his shoulders was one that came with old age and heartbreak.

Jess had been taking the same route for her runs for the past three years, since she and her husband had retired and moved into the quiet suburban neighborhood they now called home. To Jess's knowledge, the unknown man had started to visit the cemetery about three weeks previous.

The dog hadn't been with him the first two weeks, and Jess wondered if he'd gotten the dog to help him with his grief. That's what her sister-in-law had done, after her oldest son unexpectedly died of an undiagnosed heart condition, and the woman had told Jess that choosing to get a canine as a support system was the best decision she'd ever made.

While she didn't know the man personally, Jess still hoped that he was finding some comfort in the dog. Grief was such a messy emotion, she knew, and no one ever really learned how to overcome it; they simply learned how to live with it, like it was some unfortunate illness that laid dormant for the most part, only to flare up with a vengeance and cripple its host in random attacks.

Typically, Jess only thought of the man on Sundays, when she would jog past and spy him and his dog staring at the same headstone that they always came to visit. Recently, however, she'd begun to think about him during the week, usually when she saw a young couple and pondered over the possibility that the poor man had lost his spouse.

What pain that would cause. She couldn't imagine losing her husband of forty-three years. It would probably lead to her own death—one caused by heartbreak. Then again, it could be the man's mother or father; it seemed odd to her that, if either parent was still living and involved in his life, that they would allow him to mourn alone.

Still, Jess didn't feel comfortable approaching the man in the cemetery. For one, she wanted to respect his space. Two, she doubted he would appreciate knowing that some stranger had been watching him every week.

Of course, she could pass it off as the old woman in her, who never wanted to see someone of the younger generation suffering without support.

Although she was torn between offering a maternal presence and allowing the man his space, the decision was made for her when, on one Sunday, she approached the cemetery at her regular time only to discover that the man was not standing in his usual spot.

Instead, he was crouched by the gate leading into the field of headstones, one hand against the metal fencing, the other cupped over his mouth to muffle his sobs. His shoulders shook with the pressure of his sorrow, and his beautiful dog was nudging at him insistently, little whines escaping its mouth.

Jess felt her own heart ache with sympathy, and she slowed to a walk as she approached the pair.

The dog noticed her first, and she was inwardly stunned by just how quickly it went from trying to comfort its owner to watching her cautiously, muscles taut with tension as it tried to determine if she posed a threat.