Evidence of Us

The dog hasn't eaten since Wednesday. His bowl sits in the corner, kibble now dust-gray with neglect, and he stares at me with those same worried eyes she used to give me when I'd come home drunk from office parties.

Her hair still coats the bathroom drain—a coppery accumulation I can't bring myself to clear. Each strand feels like an accusation. She took everything else, even the plants I'd spent six months keeping alive. But the hair remains, stubborn as love.

My iPhone lights up with another notification I don't read. David wants to know if I'm coming in on Monday. I haven't responded to any of his messages since Friday night, when I told him about the promotion. She was asleep beside me. I'd never heard her make that sound before—something between a laugh and a sob. "You'll be traveling again," she'd said. "That's all you are anymore. A ghost with a company credit card."

The cable box blinks 12:00 in the bedroom. She set it up. I never learned how. So it flashes like some morbid countdown, reminding me of time passing whether I want it to or not.

In the garage, surrounded by boxes she didn't take, I find his baseball glove from the summer she got pregnant. We'd told everyone we were "just practicing." The leather's still soft, smelling of cut grass and possibility. I slide my hand inside and it fits, which feels wrong somehow. Like I'm wearing someone else's skin.

The dog whines from the kitchen. He needs to be walked. I need to be walked. We're both domesticated creatures who've forgotten how to survive outside the routines she built for us.

Outside, the neighbor's kid is playing catch with himself, the ball arcing against a purple-dark sky. The glove feels heavy in my pocket. When we pass the woman in 4B walking her terrier, she smiles like she doesn't know. Like my world hasn't folded in on itself. I smile back. This is what adults do.

The dog sniffs at a telephone pole for a full minute before lifting his leg. At least he knows what he wants. At least he knows where he stands.

My phone buzzes again. David: "We need an answer."

I watch the neighbor kid miss an easy catch, the ball rolling into the gutter. He doesn't chase it. He just stands there, staring at what he's lost.

I type back: "Take the job."

Then I delete it. I think: we can learn to live with ghosts. We do it every day.