The Bear in the Garden

David called his depression 'the bear.' It lumbered through their lives unpredictably, hibernating for months then emerging ravenous, consuming his joy, his energy, his ability to see Julia as anything other than another obligation. The bear had moved in after his brother's funeral, settling into the spaces between them like it owned the place.

Julia planted spinach that spring. Something about needing to watch things grow, she said. David watched from the window, the bear sitting heavy beside him, breathing hot against his neck.

'You should come outside,' Julia said one evening, her hands stained with soil. 'The first leaves are coming up.'

'Later.'

'You always run later.' Her voice wasn't unkind, just bone-tired. 'David, it's been eight months.'

The bear growled, low and familiar. David felt its weight on his chest, its claws in his throat. They didn't talk about what had caused the bear's arrival—saying his brother's name made it larger somehow, made the grief fresh and suffocating all over again.

'I'm trying, Jules.'

'I know.' She sat beside him on the couch, close enough to touch but they didn't. 'But trying isn't the same as living. You're running out of time to choose.'

'To choose what?'

'To choose us.' Her voice cracked, just once. 'I love you. But I can't keep being the only one who remembers what happiness looks like.'

The bear pressed down, its weight familiar and crushing. David couldn't remember the last time he'd felt anything except exhaustion and this heaviness that lived where his laughter used to be.

'I don't know how,' he whispered. 'To come back.'

'Start small.' Julia took his hand, the first time in months. Her palm was warm. 'Come see the spinach. You don't have to be okay. You just have to be here.'

She didn't ask him to fix anything. She didn't ask him to be the man he was before. She just asked him to stand up, to walk outside, to look at small green leaves pushing through dirt she'd tended with care while he watched from behind glass.

The bear didn't disappear. But as David stepped onto their patio, his hand in Julia's, he felt its grip loosen just enough to breathe.