The Longest Distance

Six months after the divorce, David found the orange bottle in the back of the medicine cabinet—her multivitamin, three-quarters full. He'd thrown out everything else: her toothbrush, the expensive face creams, the silk robe she'd left hanging on the bathroom door. But this bottle, he'd missed.

He stood in his running gear, heart rate already elevated from the argument they'd had last night—he'd called her, drunk, wanting to know if she'd ever actually loved him, or if the vitamins had just been one more performance in the marriage she'd proposed when they were too young to know better.

The phone call had ended with her gentle voice, sharper than he remembered: "David, you need to let this go."

He was running now, pounding the pavement at 5 AM, the same route they used to take together during the year they tried to get healthy, the year they thought marriage was something you could optimize like a diet. He'd hated running then; he still hated it now. But the rhythm of his feet matching the rhythm of his heart—that was something he could control.

His father's fedora sat in the donation box by the door, another thing he'd been meaning to get rid of since the funeral. Dad had worn it to every chemo session, stubborn till the end. "You don't stop living just because you're dying," he'd said, adjusting the brim with trembling hands. David had found that both inspiring and infuriating—now he understood it was both.

The vitamins were probably expired anyway.

He stopped at the corner where she used to wait for him to catch up, bending over with hands on knees, laughing at his lack of endurance. She'd touch his arm, pull him upright, and they'd walk the rest of the way together. Back then, he thought that moment—her patience, her laughter—was what love meant.

The sun was coming up. He stretched his hamstrings, watching the light hit the pavement, realizing he'd been measuring the distance in miles when he should have been measuring it in years.

At home, he poured the vitamins into the trash—orange capsules rolling across coffee grounds and junk mail. He placed the fedora on his head, caught his reflection in the hallway mirror, and for the first time in six months, he didn't hate the man staring back.

He laced up his shoes again. It was going to be a long run.