The Pharmacy of Lost Things

Margaret stood in the supplements aisle, staring at the wall of vitamin bottles like they were ancient runes she'd forgotten how to read. B12, D3, magnesium—the alphabet of middle age, spelling out the slow erosion of her body's original warranty. She'd come in for something specific, but the fluorescent lights had already begun their usual work of blurring her thoughts into static.

Her mother had collected goldfish in her final years—not the living kind, but ceramic ones, dozens of them arranged on every surface of her apartment like some silent, multicolored audience watching her decline. "They're better than cats," Eleanor would say, running her fingers along a glazed orange curve. "They don't leave you alone when you die."

That was six months ago. Now Margaret's brother was selling the apartment, and she'd agreed to clean it out. She'd found the hat yesterday—Eleanor's good wool felt thing with the slightly crushed brim, worn to church and weddings and Margaret's college graduation, tucked away in a box with the sympathy cards. Something about the way it held its shape despite years of disuse made Margaret's throat close up. Objects had patience. People didn't.

"Can I help you find anything?"

Margaret jumped. A teenager in an apron stood there, name tag reading SAM, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Behind him, a row of goldfish crackers caught the light, their artificial brightness nearly aggressive.

"Vitamin D," she heard herself say. "The doctor says I need more sun."

"Aisle four." He gestured toward the back. "But you can't fake sunlight with pills. That's what my mom says."

Margaret nodded, suddenly exhausted. She retrieved the bottle, paid, and walked out into the grey afternoon clutching her paper bag like it contained something precious. In her car, she placed the vitamin bottle on the passenger seat beside the felt hat she'd brought from her mother's apartment. For a moment, they looked like companions traveling to some destination Margaret couldn't remember booking.

She started the engine. The goldfish crackers in the pharmacy window had made her think of her mother's collection, how they'd all ended up boxed and donated. Everything eventually got boxed and donated or swallowed or forgotten. The vitamins wouldn't help. Nothing would. But you kept buying them anyway, because the alternative was admitting you were already disappearing.

She drove home with the hat on her head and the vitamins in her pocket, wearing both like armor against a world that kept moving forward while she was still learning how to miss someone properly.