Pills, Purrs, Pixels

The bottle of vitamin D sat on the nightstand where Marcus used to keep his wedding ring. Elena stared at it, the orange plastic catching morning light through dust motes dancing in the silence. Three months since the funeral, and she still took them every day—his doctors had prescribed them for bone health, but now they were just another ritual in a life that had become nothing but.

Her iphone buzzed with another LinkedIn notification—someone from Marcus's firm posting about 'moving forward.' She threw it across the room; it hit the wall with a satisfying crack that made her flinch, then reach for it like a frightened child. The screen was fine, of course. Everything was fine. That was the problem.

A scratch came at the door—not tentative, but demanding. Barnaby, the stray cat she'd started feeding out of some misguided attempt to feel something. Marcus had been allergic. Another way she'd betrayed him by staying alive.

She opened the door. Barnaby waltzed in like he owned the place, his gray fur matted from living rough, his yellow eyes judging everything about her apartment and finding it wanting. He hopped onto the bed, sniffed Marcus's pillow, then curled up as if it had been waiting for him all along.

Elena reached for the vitamin bottle. Her hand shook. The phone lit up again—her sister, probably checking in for the tenth time today. Instead, she opened the photo album, scrolled back six months to a beach vacation: Marcus laughing, holding up a fish he'd caught, the sun making him squint. The next photo: Barnaby, skinny and feral, lurking near their hotel dumpster. She'd taken it on a whim. Marcus had teased her about being a soft touch.

The cat began to purr, a rumble that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his small chest. It vibrated through the mattress, through her ribs, through the hollow space where something vital used to be. Elena lay down beside him, careful not to touch, and let the sound fill the quiet.

"You would've hated this," she whispered to the ceiling.

But Barnaby didn't care what Marcus would have thought. He only knew that someone needed warmth, and someone else needed to provide it. He nudged her hand with a rough head, demanding nothing less than everything she had left to give.

Elena dry-swallowed the vitamin. Then she picked up her phone and texted her sister: I'm coming for dinner tomorrow.

The cat purred louder, as if this too were his idea all along.