The Weight of Living

Miriam adjusted her wool hat, though the restaurant was aggressively warm. Across the table, Thomas — her oldest friend, or at least the person who had occupied that designation for seventeen years — was describing his new job at the tech startup with an enthusiasm she found almost painful to witness. He was happy. He was thriving. He was, she realized with a pang she didn't want to examine, everything she wasn't.

"You should come by the office," Thomas said, spearing a piece of spinach from his salad. "The culture is incredible. Everyone's so alive."

Alive. The word hung in the air between them, heavy and accusing. Miriam thought of her own days: the endless spreadsheets, the gray cubicle, the way she moved through each hour like something submerged, like something that had forgotten what surface meant. She'd become the thing they never named in polite company — a zombie, really, moving through life without consuming it.

"My cat died last week," she heard herself say.

Thomas paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. The spinach fell back onto his plate. "Oh, Mim. I'm so sorry. What was his name?"

"Barnaby," she said, though it had been ridiculous to name anything Barnaby. "He was nineteen. He'd been there since college."

"Since before Daniel," Thomas said softly.

The name hit like thrown water. Daniel, who had left three years ago, taking with him the framed photographs and the good knives and Miriam's capacity to feel anything except a dull, compressing weight. Since then, she'd been excellent at appearing functional. She paid bills on time. She watered her plants. She attended dinner parties with friends and smiled at the appropriate moments.

"Yeah," Miriam said. "Since before."

Thomas reached across the table and covered her hand with his. "You know you can call me. Any time."

She looked at his hand — warm, alive, connected to someone who still knew how to be present in his own life. Something cracked open inside her, something that had been sealed since the divorce. The tears came without warning, hot and humiliating.

"I think," she whispered, "I think I've been dead for a long time."

Thomas squeezed her hand. "I know," he said. "I've been waiting for you to notice."

Outside, the city hummed with millions of people, some living, some merely moving through the motions. But here, in this overheated restaurant with a wilted spinach salad cooling between them, Miriam felt something shift. The zombie, she realized, didn't have to stay undead.

"Help me," she said.

"Always," Thomas said.

And for the first time in three years, she believed something might actually grow again.