The Green Hours

Margot stood in her kitchen at 2 AM, crushing a vitamin C tablet into her elderly golden retriever's food. Barnaby had been her husband's dog — a wedding gift from twelve years ago — and now Arthur was gone, leaving behind only this faithful animal who was slowly forgetting himself too.

"You're not supposed to have people food," she whispered to the dog, but Barnaby just thumped his tail, eyes milky with cataracts. He was the only living thing who still looked at her like she mattered.

She turned to the sink, where a bag of spinach sat wilting. Arthur had bought it the day he died — he'd decided they needed to eat healthier, to be better. They'd fought about it. She'd told him there was no point in fixing things that were already broken. He'd died of a heart attack three hours later, clutching the grocery bag in the driveway.

Now she stood in their kitchen, eating the spinach raw, leaf by bitter leaf, as if penance could bring him back. As if swallowing everything he'd wanted for them could somehow mend the cavernous space between who she was and who she should have been.

The vitamin bottle on the counter promised immunity, promised longevity, promised things Arthur would never have. Margot swallowed one dry, then another. They tasted like nothing at all.

Barnaby whimpered in his sleep, chasing some ghost of a rabbit across a dreamscape where husbands still came home and spinach wasn't a monument to regret. Margot sat on the floor beside him, buried her face in his soft golden fur, and let herself finally, finally cry.