Market Corrections

The bull had been dead for hours before Marcus found him. A magnificent Hereford, slumped against the fence line like abandoned furniture, the morning fog still clinging to his hide. Marcus adjusted his hard hat—something he never used to wear when Eleanor was alive—and sighed. The herd bull's death meant insurance paperwork, veterinary calls, and explanations to buyers who'd already placed deposits on spring calves.

He found her later that afternoon, standing by the mailbox where the county road cut through their property. Sarah, the neighbor's daughter, wore a floppy sun hat that swallowed her delicate features, holding a Tupperware container of sympathy lasagna. She was twenty-four, the same age Eleanor had been when they'd bought this farm with optimistic hearts and a terrifying mortgage.

"I heard about the bull," she said, her voice soft with that careful tone people used around widows. "Dad said you might need help with the arrangements."

Marcus wanted to tell her about the phone call he'd received that morning—another notice from the bank, another payment past due. Instead, he accepted the lasagna and watched a black bear emerge from the woods behind her, a young male scrawny from spring foraging, nosing at the garbage bins she'd somehow missed.

"There's a bear," he said, because words failed him otherwise.

Sarah turned, startled, and the bear bolted toward the tree line. In that moment of absurdity—his wife dead fourteen months, his farm failing, a bull carcass cooling in the west pasture, a twenty-four-year-old neighbor's daughter offering sympathy like some twisted echo of his lost past—Marcus laughed. It wasn't happy or sad, just the sound of something finally breaking.

"I used to be a stockbroker," he told her, watching the bear disappear. "I understood bull markets and bear markets. I thought I could predict the dips." He touched his hat's brim, suddenly exhausted. "But nobody tells you the real corrections don't happen on Wall Street."

Sarah didn't respond, just reached out and squeezed his hand. Her palm was warm, alive, and for the first time in months, Marcus didn't pull away.