The Empty Cap

The funeral had ended hours ago, but Marcus still sat on the couch, feeling like a zombie moving through someone else's life. The apartment was quiet — too quiet. He kept reaching for his phone to text Elena, then remembering she was gone. Three weeks. That's how long it had been since the car accident, but the numbness hadn't faded.

Her baseball cap sat on the kitchen counter, the blue one with the faded Cubs logo she'd refused to replace. Marcus stood up and walked over, picking it up. It still smelled like her — vanilla shampoo and the faint scent of clove cigarettes she'd been trying to quit. He'd promised to help her kick the habit. Now she didn't have to quit anything.

He remembered the first baseball game they'd attended together, five years ago. She'd worn this hat, her hair pulled through the back, grinning when he'd bought her an overpriced beer. They'd kissed in the seventh inning stretch. He'd proposed under the lights at Wrigley Field two years later.

The zombie feeling deepened. He was eating, sleeping, going to work, but none of it felt real. His therapist called it disassociation. Marcus called it survival.

He set the hat on his own head. It was too small, but he didn't care. In the mirror, he looked ridiculous — a grown man in his dead wife's baseball cap. But for the first time in three weeks, something felt right.

"I'm done being a zombie," he whispered to his reflection.

Marcus grabbed his keys. The Cubs were playing tonight. Elena would have wanted him to go. He'd wear her hat, drink an overpriced beer, and maybe — just maybe — start feeling something again. It wasn't much, but it was a start.