The Vitamin of Light

Every morning at seven, Marie places the orange pills on the granite counter. Vitamin D, the doctor said, for Eleanor's bones. For the shell that's outlasting the soul inside.

The kitchen is flooded with that terrible, brilliant light—the kind that makes everything visible. Eleanor stands at the sink, drinking water from a glass she's already filled three times this morning. Her hands tremble just enough that some spills onto the counter, pooling around Marie's wedding ring, abandoned there during dishwashing last night.

"I had a dream," Eleanor says, turning. For a moment, her eyes clear. "We were somewhere cold. A cabin."

Marie's heart bears down like a physical weight. This happens sometimes—lucidity like a knife through fog. "Colorado," she says softly. "Thirty years ago."

Eleanor's face crumples. "The bear outside the window. I remember being afraid."

"There was no bear, El. That was a shadow from the tree."

"But we stayed inside anyway." Eleanor's voice gains strength. "We made love all weekend rather than risk the bears."

Marie laughs, and it's genuine, surprising her. She had forgotten that too—how they'd used the imaginary bear as an excuse to stay naked under the heavy duvet, the cabin cold but their bodies warm, the orange glow of the fireplace illuminating everything they'd only just begun to promise each other.

"Take your vitamin," Marie says, but her voice is gentle now.

Eleanor swallows the pill without water, then reaches for Marie's hand. "You're still here."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"But you're so young," Eleanor says, and Marie realizes with a start that her wife is seeing her as she was thirty years ago—the hungry, hopeful girl who'd chosen a log cabin over bears. "You should be living."

Marie watches the water slide down Eleanor's chin, thinks about the job she almost took in Chicago, the life she almost chose. "I am living," she says, and believes it. "This is it. All of it—the pills and the spills and the bears that were never there. It's still us."

Eleanor smiles, something fragile breaking through. "Then give me another orange. One for both of us."