What Remains: A Life Retrieved

On the drive to bury their beloved dog, a couple’s shared memories give way to painful confessions that threaten to reshape their life together.

A Life Retrieved is an episode of a six-part anthology titled What Remains, exploring the many faces of grief, how it distorts, conceals, and ultimately reveals who we really are.

Steve and Catherine drive north with their beloved Retriever, Luke, in the back. He is wrapped in Catherine’s old coat, the one he slept with in the final weeks of his life. His body is carefully positioned as if he’s sleeping and might wake when they arrive. He won’t.

They are taking him home. Back to the Yorkshire village where they both grew up and first met.  Where Luke once ran as a puppy in the field, long before arthritis slowed him down and the vet began using words like quality of life.

They fill the journey the same way most people would. With his memories. Small ones at first. The day they chose Luke from the litter. How he chose Catherine, not Steve. How he cried the first night. How he ate an entire chocolate cake and cost them five hundred pounds in emergency vet bills. They laugh. Properly laugh.

But grief has a way of unwinding things. The memories begin to turn towards each other. With each passing mile, the car becomes less of a vehicle and more of a confession box. Things are said that haven’t been said in years. Some things that have never been said at all. Luke lies silently behind them. Keeping their secrets. Or perhaps giving them permission to finally be told.

By the time they reach the field to bury their beloved boy, the truth of their life together feels different. Some things are easier to bury than others.