The Weight of Left Things

The hat still hung on the hook by the door—a gray fedora she'd bought him in that thrift shop in New Orleans three years ago. He hadn't worn it since the funeral. The cat, Luna, wound herself around his ankles, meowing for breakfast, while the dog lay in the corner, chin on paws, watching him with those knowing eyes that made him wonder if animals grieved the way humans did.

He stood in the kitchen, staring at the half-eaten papaya on the counter. She'd always loved them—said they tasted like sunshine and possibilities. Now they just tasted like absence. He'd bought it yesterday, some masochistic impulse at the grocery store, and now it sat there, its bright orange flesh mocking him with tropical cheerfulness.

The cable from the fallen lamp snaked across the floor. He'd knocked it over two nights ago, drunk and reaching for her in the empty half of the bed. Every morning he stepped over it, like it was some kind of threshold he couldn't bring himself to cross.

"You know," he said to the cat, scratching behind her ears, "she would've yelled at me about that cable. Called it a death trap."

Luna purred, indifferent to his epiphany.

His therapist said he should pack her things. Donate them. Move forward. But forward seemed like a direction without landmarks, and these objects—the hat, the cable, the routine of buying fruit she'd never eat—were the only coordinates he had left.

He picked up the papaya, took a bite. It was overripe now, soft and fermenting on his tongue. Sweet and wrong. Just like everything.

The dog lifted his head, let out a soft whuff.

"I know," he said. "Me too."

He placed the hat on his head. It smelled like her perfume still—vanilla and old books. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he'd take it off.