The Weight of Fur and Bone

Elias had been moving through his days like a zombie for three years, since the funeral home he inherited became both his inheritance and his tomb. The embalming room smelled of formaldehyde and borrowed time, and he'd grown accustomed to the weight of other people's grief settling in his chest like wet cotton.

The bear tattoo on his forearm—his wife's spirit animal, she'd said—had faded to a ghost of ink, much like the life they'd planned. Julia had died before they could buy the house with the garden she wanted. Now Elias arranged flowers for other people's weddings and other people's widows.

"Mr. Thorne?" The woman in the doorway was maybe thirty, clutching a cat carrier like it contained something radioactive. "They said you could help with... unusual requests."

The cat inside—a ragged thing with one ear and a scar through its eyebrow—hissed.

"Depends on the request," Elias said, though he already knew. He'd seen it before. People who couldn't bear to let go, who wanted their loved ones preserved beyond all natural law.

"My mother," she said. "She loved Barnaby here more than anything. She made me promise—when she went, she wanted him... with her. In the casket."

Elias felt the zombie haze crack. Something sharp and real pierced through. "That's not legal, Mrs..."

"Chen. And I know what's legal. I'm asking what's possible."

He looked at the cat—Barnaby—who was now watching him with ancient, judging eyes. This creature had outlived its person. Soon it would follow her, if he allowed it. A permanent chaperone into death.

"I can make it possible," Elias heard himself say. "But you'll need to sign some papers. And Barnaby will need to be... asleep."

He thought of Julia's garden, unwritten. Of his tattoo, faded. Some bears carried heavy things through forests. Some carried memories through rooms full of dead people.

That night, Elias sat with his own cat—a perfect, unscarred calico named Marge who'd appeared on his porch six months after Julia died, as if summoned by some benevolent universe to ensure he remembered to feed himself.

"You get to live," he told Marge, pressing his face into her soft belly. "You get to live."

Barnaby was euthanized two days before his owner's funeral. Elias placed them together in the silk-lined casket, the woman's hand resting on the cat's scarred head. It looked like peace. It looked like love had won, even in death.

Something shifted inside him—a heavy, sodden thing beginning to dry. The zombie's shuffle slowed, then stopped. Elias went home and planted roses in the boxes by his window. They were yellow, Julia's favorite.

He couldn't bear the weight forever. But maybe he didn't have to carry it alone anymore.