The Last Wave

The rain had been falling for three days straight, a relentless gray curtain that matched the hollow space where my heart used to be. I stood on the dock, watching the water rise inch by inch, swallowing the pilings like some slow, patient beast. My iPhone buzzed in my pocket — probably Sarah again, asking if I'd signed the papers. I didn't check.

That's when I saw the bear.

He emerged from the treeline, a massive dark shape against the storm-drab forest, moving with that peculiar heavy-footed grace that makes something so large seem almost weightless. He paused at the water's edge, dipping his massive head to drink. Just drank, like it was any ordinary morning, like the world wasn't falling apart.

I felt like a zombie lately — dead inside, still going through the motions. Wake up, avoid phone calls, stare at water, repeat. But watching this animal, so profoundly alive in his animal way, something cracked open in my chest.

The bear lifted his head, water dripping from his muzzle, and looked directly at me. His eyes were small and dark and utterly indifferent. Then he turned and lumbered back into the forest, disappearing as silently as he'd appeared.

My phone buzzed again. This time I pulled it out. Sarah's text: "I found Daniel's old teddy bear in the closet. The one from the hospital. Do you want it?"

Our son. Daniel would be seven this month. The bear we'd given him when he was sick, the one he clung to through months of treatments and until he wasn't.

I stood there on the dock as the rain intensified, proper weeping weather, and finally typed back: "Yes. Please."

The water kept rising. The bear was gone. But something in me — some frozen, zombie part — had finally begun to thaw.