The Last Hat

The funeral was mercifully short, but the reception would last forever. Maya stood by the buffet table, wearing a hat that felt too tight, both physically and metaphorically. She was the responsible sister now, the organized one, the one who handled things. Another hat to add to the collection she'd been accumulating since her mother's diagnosis: the dutiful daughter, the patient nurse, the grieving orphan.

Her father's golden retriever, Barnaby, pressed his warm flank against her leg. He'd been Maya's shadow since the funeral began, sensing the vacancy in the house where his master had lived. The dog's presence was the only thing keeping her grounded.

"You're doing great," said her uncle Gary, whose funeral-appropriate sympathy seemed at odds with his usual self. "Your father would be proud."

Maya nodded mechanically. She felt like a zombie moving through the rituals of mourning, performing the appropriate emotions while feeling increasingly hollow inside. Her father had been dead for months before his heart finally stopped—that long decline that turned him into a stranger while he was still alive. She'd begun grieving before the hospice workers even packed their supplies.

"You should take the dog," Gary said, misreading her silence. "Your father would want Barnaby to have a good home."

She looked down at the retriever, who was watching her with those soulful eyes that seemed to understand everything. "I can't," she said. "I'm already... I have too many hats, Gary. I can't add another one."

"What?"

"Responsibilities. Roles. I'm already wearing too many."

Her uncle's expression shifted from confusion to something like recognition. "You know," he said slowly, "your father once told me something before he got really sick. He said the mistake people make is thinking they have to wear all their hats at once."

Maya looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time that day.

"He said you take them off when you're at home," Gary continued. "You put them on one at a time, and you take them off again. You don't wear them all at once. That's how you break."

Barnaby whined softly and nudged her hand with his wet nose. Maya felt something crack inside her chest—a wall she'd built to hold everything together.

"I don't know how to take them off anymore," she said, her voice barely audible above the murmurs of the reception.

"Start with one," Gary said. "Just one."

Maya looked down at the dog, who was still waiting, still present, still demanding nothing but her attention. She took off her hat—literally, the black wool one she'd worn for the ceremony—and ran her hand through her flattened hair.

"Barnaby," she said. "Do you want to go home?"

The dog's tail thumped against the buffet table, sending a small plate of cookies crashing to the floor. For the first time in what felt like years, Maya laughed.