I raised my coffee mug toward the sky as the church bells of Golden began to chime three o’clock across the peaceful valley:
“…we don’t ever, ever… drive past the people who need us.”
Barnaby let out a soft, contented sigh on the grass, his tail thumping once against the cedar boards: thump.
The blue jays climbed into the limitless Colorado sky.
The mountains were permanent and deep.
The ledger was closed forever.
And the man who had stopped for a dying stranger on the roadside… was finally, beautifully, eternally home.
