Dirigo

Two years. Jack Kelly had been gone for two years and Spot had almost forgotten about him. He’d disappeared one night without warning, without goodbyes, not even Davey knew where he’d gone off to. Spot had shrugged when people asked him about it, but at night he would lay awake imagining all the places Jack could have gone to, all the trouble he could be in. Maybe he was dead. Maybe he was married. Maybe he had gotten bored with New York and newspapers and Spot. The thought curled Spot’s lip. People didn’t get bored with him. He just wasn’t a boring guy.

( And then, two years three months and a week and half after the night on the dock when Spot had almost said the words out loud and Jack had almost said them back, he showed up in Brooklyn, sitting on the ferry wharf looking the same as when he’d left. )