It’s quiet at the lake. The only sounds are the birds and the sheeth sheeth sheeth of a shovel picking up dirt.

The neighbor isn’t playing his music today, with one short exception: Elvis’ “Love Me Tender.”

The sunset lights the gently rippling lake in a golden glow before fading into twilight gray. The horizon is still and steady as the vibrant daylight green shores fade with the sky into darker, muted colors of themselves.

The dirt is nearly done now.

The brown pile next to the big hole has shrunk with every minute since 8:45, the shovel’s pace only interrupted with periodic choruses of thud-thud–thud as a wooden beam packs down the shovel’s work.

“Prevents the animals from getting into it,” my partner explains.

I stand by the shovels, or in the house, or on the yard. Wandering around the property as I wait for him to finish. I said prayers and lit candles and cried, and packed up my things. My part is over. I’m not sure what to do next.

Tomorrow we will go to a shelter. My therapist and mother and aunt and I all agree this is the best plan. Our home is a dog home now; a dog home is incomplete without a dog.

But today there is a box, wooden and simple, and a pile of dirt that needs returned to the ground.

When we’re finished and it’s dark, our dog home will remain incomplete.