The Unspoken Supplement

Margaret stood in the kitchen, crushing the blue vitamin tablet into powder. Her hands trembled slightly—not from age, but from the weight of what she was about to do. The cat wound around her ankles, sensing something was wrong. It always did, before.

"You're still giving him those?" David's voice came from the doorway. He looked tired in that way that accumulates over thirty years, like sediment settling at the bottom of a river.

"He needs them," she said, not turning around. "His memory's getting worse."

"His memory's fine, Marg. You're the one who can't let go."

The dog lifted its head from the corner, letting out a soft whine. The animal had belonged to Michael, their son, before the accident. Three years now, and Margaret still kept everything exactly as he'd left it. The room he'd grown up in remained a shrine, unchanged, dust gathering like silent witnesses to her refusal to move forward.

She sprinkled the vitamin powder into Michael's oatmeal, stirring methodically. The routine had become a kind of prayer, a ritual she couldn't abandon even though she knew—she knew—it changed nothing.

"Remember how he used to call you 'fox'?" David asked, his voice cracking. "When he was little, because of that red coat you wore?"

Margaret's hand froze on the spoon. The memory hit her like physical pain: Michael, seven years old, laughing as she spun him around in the fallen leaves, her red coat bright against the autumn gray. Fox. His special name for her, full of love and secrets.

"I remember," she whispered.

"He's gone, Margaret."

"I know."

"Then why do you still make oatmeal for a dead man?"

The question hung between them, heavy and terrible. She looked at the bowl, the vitamin powder turning the oatmeal a strange blue-green. She'd been doing this every morning for three years, her own private madness, her way of keeping something alive that had long since died.

Margaret turned to face her husband. His eyes were wet, his face lined with grief he'd never fully expressed. She realized then that she wasn't the only one trapped in this amber of loss. They both were, just in different ways.

She poured the oatmeal down the sink.

"I think," she said slowly, "I think I'm done with the vitamins."

David crossed the kitchen and took her in his arms. The cat jumped onto the counter, watching them with knowing eyes. The dog stood and stretched. For the first time in three years, the house felt like a home again.