The Last Goodbye

The orange sunset bled into the hallway as Marcus packed the last box. Three years of marriage reduced to cardboard and tape. Sarah's hat still hung on the hook—a navy beanie she'd worn through chemotherapy, the one he'd brought her grapes in when she couldn't keep food down.

Their cat, Luna, wound between his legs, purring like she understood everything and nothing at once. She'd been Sarah's companion through the worst of it, sleeping beside her during those long, exhausted nights when pain kept them both awake.

"Just one more vitamin," Sarah had joked during those final weeks, holding up the white pill. "For luck."

Lightning cracked across the sky, sudden and violent. Marcus flinched. The summer storm had been brewing all afternoon, but the crash still startled him—the way Sarah's death had, though he'd seen it coming for months.

He took down the hat. It still smelled like her—her shampoo, the hospital, the peculiar sweetness that had clung to her skin even as she wasted away. He'd always hated that smell, hated what it meant. Now he pressed the fabric to his face and breathed it in anyway.

Luna meowed, impatient with his melancholy. Practical. Like Sarah had been.

"I know," he said to the empty room. "I know."

The orange light faded to gray. Marcus set the hat in the box, closed the flaps, and carried it to the moving truck parked outside. The rain started as he locked the door—a soft patter at first, then a downpour.

He drove away without looking back.