The Capsule We Swallow

The baseball cap sat on the dashboard of Maya's parked car, its navy brim curled from years of wear. David's cap. She hadn't touched it since the funeral three weeks ago.

Maya adjusted her own hat—a straw fedora she'd bought on a whim in New Orleans, the same trip where David had first complained about the fatigue that wouldn't go away. She'd thought it was just stress. The baseball playoffs were in full swing that October, and they'd spent every evening watching games, David growing quieter as the innings dragged on.

"You should start taking these," the doctor had said, pushing a prescription across the desk. "Vitamin D supplements, maybe some B-complex. But honestly, Maya, at this stage..."

At this stage. The words still knocked the wind out of her.

Now she sat in the pharmacy parking lot, a bottle of multivitamins on the passenger seat beside David's cap. The irony wasn't lost on her—all those years he'd teased her about her expensive supplements, her commitment to wellness, her carefully curated vitamin regimen. And now she was buying them for him, or what was left of him. The daily ritual of pills had become hers alone.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her sister: *Baseball game tonight. Want to come over?*

She stared at the message. She couldn't remember the last time she'd watched a game without David. Baseball had been their language—the way they'd met (he'd spilled popcorn on her at a minor league game), the way they'd celebrated anniversaries (always with tickets, never jewelry), the way they'd filled the silence of those final months (games playing softly on the TV while he slept).

Maya picked up the baseball cap, running her thumb over the frayed edge of the brim. Inside the crown, sharpie still visible: *D & M, Summer 2018*. Their first date, written in permanent ink, now just a ghost of a memory.

She put the cap on. It was too big, sliding down over her eyes. But she left it there, breathing in the faint scent of him that still lingered in the fabric—cedar and stale popcorn and something like rain.

The vitamins could wait. She put the car in drive and headed toward her sister's house, toward the bottom of the fourth, toward a life that kept demanding she show up for it, even when showing up felt like the bravest thing she could do.