Resurrection Sunday

The padel court echoed with the rhythmic thwack of rubber against ball, a sound that had become the metronome of my Sunday afternoons. Marcus played with the easy confidence of a man whose life was unfolding exactly according to plan. I moved like a zombie through the motions—stopping at the service line, pivoting, swinging—my body present while something essential in me had already departed.

"You're not here," he said afterward, when we sat on the bench sharing a water bottle. His leg pressed against mine, warm and alive, and I felt the terrible distance between his warmth and my own cold machinery.

"I'm here."

"Barely." His thumb traced the line of my jaw. "Since the funeral, you've been wandering."

The funeral. Three weeks since I'd held Buster while the vet administered the final injection. The golden retriever who'd slept beside me through divorce, layoffs, the lonely holidays of my thirties. Marcus thought it was just a dog—just grief that would pass in its own season. But Buster had been the last living thread to a version of myself I still recognized.

"It's not just the dog," I said, the words tasting like betrayal even as I spoke them.

Marcus withdrew his hand. The space between our thighs suddenly felt vast. "Then what?"

What could I say? That I'd been playing the role of the woman who had everything—the partner, the career, the Sunday padel games—while inside, something had been rotting for years? That sometimes, driving home from work, I'd pull over and sit in the car, paralyzed by the conviction that I'd forgotten how to want anything at all?

"I think I've been dead for a long time," I said finally. "And I don't know how to come back."

Marcus stood up, shouldering his bag. The court lights flickered on, casting everything in harsh artificial brightness. "That's the thing about zombies," he said, his voice gentle. "They get to choose whether they stay dead or not."

He walked away, and I sat alone on the bench as darkness fell, the ghost of my dog's head resting on my knee, waiting to see if I would rise.