The Vitamin Ghost

The prescription bottle sat on her nightstand for three months after the funeral. Vitamin D. The doctor had prescribed it for David's bone pain, the cancer's cruel parting gift. Elena found herself holding the orange plastic bottle some nights, reading the label as if it contained his last words.

"You need to get out," Sarah had said over coffee that morning, her patience thinning like ice in spring. "David wouldn't want you living like a ghost in your own life."

Elena had almost snapped at her oldest friend. Sarah didn't understand. Sarah's husband was still alive, still texting her about dinner, still leaving socks on the floor. Sarah still had things to complain about.

The condo was quiet. Too quiet. Even the dog, Buster—David's retired police dog—had stopped waiting by the door. The German shepherd's mourning had been cleaner somehow. He ate when fed, slept when tired, accepted loss with the stoic discipline of his training. No late-night crying into pillows, no staring at vitamin bottles as if they held answers.

Elena opened the bottle and shook two tablets into her palm. Dry, chalky, unremarkable. David had hated taking them. "Like swallowing little bones," he'd joked, that gallows humor he'd developed somewhere between diagnosis and death.

She swallowed both without water.

The doorbell rang at 11 PM. Sarah stood there with takeout Thai and a bottle of wine, shame written across her face. "I was an asshole today."

"You were honest."

"I was jealous," Sarah said, and it hung there between them, the ugly truth. "Your grief is so big, Elena. It makes everything else feel small. My divorce, my kids, my job. I feel like I'm complaining about a papercut when you've lost a limb."

Buster appeared behind Elena, his tail giving a tentative thump. He'd always liked Sarah better anyway.

"Come in," Elena said. "But I'm drinking the wine. The vitamins are for David."

"The vitamins?"

"His vitamin D. I've been taking them since... since. It's irrational. I know it won't bring him back. But for a few minutes each day, I'm doing something he used to do. It's the closest I can get."

Sarah's eyes softened. "You're taking his vitamins?"

"I know. I'm losing it."

"No," Sarah said, setting down the food. "You're not losing it. You're trying to hold on." She paused. "Can I have one? The vitamins, I mean. If it's the closest you can get to him... maybe I should feel it too."

Elena laughed, the first real laugh in months. "They taste like chalk."

"Perfect," Sarah said. "Chalk and grief. The dinner of champions."