The Absence We Bear

The palm reader on Venice Beach had told Elena she'd live to ninety, but at forty-two, staring at the pathology report, she wondered if the old woman had meant dog years. She swallowed another vitamin D supplement — the fourth one that morning, as if overdosing on sunshine in pill form could somehow fix what was broken inside.

Marcus sat across from her at the kitchen table, his coffee untouched. The space between them felt oceanic, filled with everything they weren't saying. Three years of fertility treatments, of hope crystallized into monthly disappointment, had carved a hollow space where their marriage used to be. They'd become experts at bearing it — that peculiar weight of unsaid grief — carrying it like a stone in their throats, swallowing around it until the muscle memory of normal conversation felt foreign.

"I bought those prenatal vitamins you wanted," he said, setting a bag on the table. "The ones with the omega-3s."

Elena stared at the bag. She hadn't asked for prenatal vitamins in months. They'd stopped trying six weeks ago, after the doctor said her uterus was too scarred, too hostile, too whatever euphemism medical professionals used for broken.

"Marcus, we —" She stopped. The glass of water beside her trembled. Ripples disturbing the surface like the conversation they needed to have, the one that would either drown them or finally let them swim.

He looked up, and she saw it then: the same denial she'd been living in, the same refusal to let go of the future they'd imagined. His eyes were desperate, hungry for a lie they could both believe.

"Maybe this time," he said, his voice cracking. "Maybe it'll work."

She reached across the table and took his hand, palm against palm, the lines of their futures crossing and uncrossing in the space between them. Some stories don't have happy endings, she realized. Some stories just have endings, and you either bear them together or you don't bear them at all.

"Okay," she said, and lied for both of them. "Maybe this time."