The Buried Line

Elena stood before the bathroom mirror, scissors trembling in her hand. Thirty years of marriage, thirty years of him running his fingers through her dark waves whenever he passed behind her chair. Now Paul was three months in the ground, and she'd finally worked up the courage.

The first lock fell to the tiled floor. Then another. By the time she stopped, her hair — once thick enough to hide behind — was chopped into something jagged and raw. She looked like someone she didn't recognize. Someone who could survive this.

A knock came from the front door.

"Cable repair!" a voice called out. "Line's been down since the storm."

Elena opened the door to find a young man with grease-stained hands and an apologetic smile. "Sorry, ma'am. The main cable out back got buried under that oak root system. Gotta dig it out."

She watched from the window as he worked, the shovel cutting into earth she and Paul had planted together. The hydrangeas. The rosemary. The cable had been down since the night of the funeral, and she hadn't bothered to call. Silence had felt appropriate. Silence had felt like Paul.

Then the dog appeared.

It was a mangy golden retriever, one ear half-torn, ribs showing through dull fur. It limped into her yard and collapsed near where the cable guy worked.

The repairman looked up, wiped sweat from his forehead. "That your dog, ma'am?"

"It wasn't." She hesitated. "But it is now."

She found herself on the porch, setting down a bowl of leftover stew. The dog ate as if it might never eat again. Elena stroked its matted coat, feeling something shift inside her chest — something that had been frozen since Paul's last breath.

"Cable's back up," the repairman said, testing the connection inside. "You've got TV again."

She paid him and stood in her living room, the television flickering to life with some daytime talk show. But she turned it off again.

Instead, she sat on the floor beside the dog, her chopped hair falling forward, letting this wounded creature rest its head on her thigh. The buried line had been unearthed. Connection restored.