The Weight of What Remains

The apartment was quieter than she'd expected it to be. David had been dead three weeks, and still she found herself reaching for the phone to tell him about the sunset — that particular shade of burnt orange that reminded them both of that trip to Sedona, when they'd been young enough to believe love could solve anything.

She stood before the fish tank on the mantle. The goldfish — stupidly named Captain Fin by David's nephew — swam in endless circles, its orange scales flashing in the afternoon light. David had won it at a carnival last summer, that same night they'd argued about whether to try for a baby. He'd come home with the plastic bag of water and this ridiculous fish, like it could substitute for the child she wasn't ready to have.

"You're all I've got left, aren't you?" she whispered to the fish.

Barnaby, David's golden retriever, pressed his warm weight against her leg. He'd been David's dog through and through — slept on his side of the bed, followed him room to room, gazed at him with heartbreaking devotion. Since the funeral, Barnaby had been seeking her out with the same quiet desperation she felt in herself. Two survivors learning to share a space that felt suddenly enormous.

She sank to the floor, the dog resting his heavy head on her shoulder. The smell of him — wet fur and earth — was the only thing that felt real anymore.

"I miss him," she told the dog, tears coming at last. "I miss him so much it feels like something physical, like I'm carrying around a stone I can't put down."

Barnaby whined softly.

She looked up at the goldfish again, swimming its endless circles, and thought about how grief was like that — repetitive, suffocating, confined to a small space. But also: alive. Still swimming, still demanding to be fed, still beautiful in its stubborn persistence.

She would have to learn to live in this apartment alone. She would have to decide what to do with David's clothes, his books, his ridiculous fish. But not today.

Today, she would sit on the floor with the dog, watch the orange light fade from the sky, and let herself miss him. Some things couldn't be rushed. Some weights were meant to be carried.