The Last Vitamin

Margaret stood before the open refrigerator at 2 AM, the fluorescent light casting harsh shadows across her tired face. She pulled out the container of wilted spinach—Ethan's favorite, the one he'd insisted on buying from the farmer's market every Saturday morning. Three weeks since the funeral, and she still reached for his hand when she woke up.

The dog, Buster, nudged her ankle with his wet nose. He'd been sleeping in Ethan's study lately, curled up on the still-warm leather chair as if waiting for the man who'd rescued him from a shelter six years ago. Margaret reached down to stroke his golden fur, noticing how gray his muzzle had become. Time moved differently now—simultaneously crawling and sprinting, leaving her disoriented in her own kitchen.

She opened the cabinet and there it was: the orange bottle of vitamins Ethan had taken religiously every morning with his coffee. Vitamin D, he'd said, because his doctor was concerned about bone density. She'd teased him about it, called him an old man before she knew what old age would actually look like when it arrived suddenly at fifty-two, stealing him away before either of them had prepared goodbyes.

Margaret's fingers closed around the small wooden box on the top shelf. Inside lay Ethan's favorite hat—the crushed fedora he'd worn on their first date, the one he'd doffed dramatically when he'd asked her to dance at their wedding, the same one that had sat crooked on his head in every family photograph for twenty-three years. She pressed it to her face, breathing in the faint scent of his hair product and the lavender detergent she'd always used.

The spinach could wait. The vitamins could wait. She placed the hat on her own head, the brim slipping down over her eyes, and sank to the kitchen floor. Buster immediately curled into her lap, his warmth anchoring her to the present moment. Tomorrow she would throw out the spinach. Tomorrow she would donate the vitamins to the food pantry. But tonight, in the quiet dark of her kitchen with her husband's hat resting crooked on her head, Margaret allowed herself to grieve the future they'd planned but would never live to see.