The Things We Keep

Marcus had been dead for three years when the dog found me.

I was sitting in section 214, watching the Cubs lose again, the same seats Marcus and I had shared every Sunday for seven years. The iPhone 6 in my pocket — his phone, the one I'd never had the heart to deactivate — buzzed against my thigh. A phantom notification. Sometimes I forgot it was even there until the battery died and the silence felt louder than it should.

Then I felt wet breath on my wrist.

A golden retriever, graying around the muzzle, had squeezed between my legs and the empty seat beside me. He looked at me with eyes the color of cognac, waiting like he expected something specific. A recognition, maybe.

"Hey, buddy," I said, my voice cracking. I hadn't spoken since I'd ordered my beer three innings ago.

The dog settled against my leg, heavy and warm, and it was the warmth undid me. Marcus had had a dog just like this — Buster, who'd disappeared the week after the funeral. Marcus's sister had told me he'd probably run off, looking for him. I'd nodded like that made sense, like grief was something a dog could track by scent.

I pulled out the iPhone. The screen still showed the last photo Marcus had taken — the two of us at this same stadium, sunlight cutting across our faces, my arm around his shoulders. We looked happy. We looked like friends, which we were, except also not.

The notification was just the weather app asking for permission to update. But my thumb slipped, opened the drafts folder instead. I didn't know there were drafts.

**"I should've told you. Not about the cancer — about everything else. About why I always bought the extra ticket. About why I never dated anyone who wouldn't sit with us at the games. I think you knew. I think that's why you never asked."**

The dog whined, pressing his nose into my palm.

The message was dated three days before he died. He'd gone into hospice the next day, and I'd sat beside his bed reading him box scores from the 2016 World Series run, both of us pretending he was coming home.

I'd loved him for twelve years. I'd never said it. He'd loved me back, never said it, and then he'd died, and I'd kept his phone like keeping a secret was the same as keeping a person.

The dog — Buster, it had to be Buster — licked a tear off my cheek. He smelled like cedar and old couches. Like Marcus's apartment.

"You found me," I whispered.

The Cubs' catcher hit a home run. The crowd roared. I took Marcus's phone and opened a new message, typed the words I should have said at his bedside, the words he'd left unsaid too.

Then I deleted them. Some truths aren't meant for text messages.

I stood up, and the dog followed. We walked out of the stadium together, the game still playing behind us, and for the first time in three years, the silence felt okay.