The Court at Sunset

The vitamin D sat on her tongue like a small white lie—one she told herself every morning since David died. The doctor said she needed it, said the winters in Seattle had leeched something fundamental from her bones, but Elena knew the real deficiency was something no supplement could fix.

She arrived at the padel club at six, the glass-walled courts glowing amber in the sunset. David had loved this game, had dragged her here twice a week before the cancer, before the hospice, before the silence that filled their bedroom like a slow-rising tide. She hadn't played since. Her racquet gathered dust in the hall closet alongside his—twin ghosts of a life interrupted.

'You again,' called Mateo, the Argentine coach with silver hair and knowing eyes. He'd found her here last week, standing motionless on Court 3, watching shadows stretch across the green surface.

'Thought I'd try,' she said, voice tight.

They played. Her movements were clumsy at first, muscles remembering what her mind tried to forget. The ball cracked against the glass walls—a rhythm like heartbeat, like arguments unresolved, like words spoken too late. Mateo didn't speak, just returned each shot with a patience that felt like forgiveness.

Then it happened: a serve she didn't see coming, caught her off guard, sent her scrambling backward. Her ankle rolled. She went down hard.

And in that moment, flat on her back, breathless with pain that felt almost like relief, the lightning struck—not from the storm-darkened sky above, but somewhere deep in her chest. The realization hit with sudden, terrible clarity: she wasn't mourning the death of a man. She was mourning the death of the woman she'd been when he was alive.

Mateo's face appeared above her, concerned. 'Elena?'

She started laughing—first a chuckle, then something wilder, something that scared them both. The tears came with it, hot and fast.

'I'm okay,' she gasped. 'I think I'm finally okay.'

The vitamin D bottle sat on her nightstand that evening, untouched. Some things, she decided, you had to learn to live without.