The Weight of Winter

Margot adjusted her father's fedora on the coat rack, the felt still carrying his scent of pipe tobacco and rain. Three months since the funeral, and she still couldn't bring herself to wear it—just carry it back and forth between her apartment and the office like some absurd talisman against grief.

The office lights hummed at 9 PM, the kind of silence that feels heavier than noise. Her team's presentation had gone spectacularly wrong that afternoon, and now she was rewriting slides that nobody would likely read. The corporate bear—that's what David called the endless restructuring, the layoffs that circled like hungry animals—had finally caught up with their department.

"Still here?" David's voice came from the doorway. He held two paper cups of vending machine coffee.

"Someone has to pretend this matters," she said, accepting the cup. Their fingers brushed, lingered a fraction too long. The unspoken thing between them had been gaining weight for months, heavy and awkward as a secret.

"My ex-wife used to feed that cat," he said suddenly, nodding toward the window. A stray orange tabby sat on the fire escape, watching them through the glass. "Said animals knew when you were lonely. Would show up like clockwork."

The cat tapped the glass with its paw. Margot stood up, her joints stiff from sitting too long, and opened the window just enough. The cat didn't come in—just looked at them with ancient, knowing eyes.

"Your father's hat," David said softly. "You still carry it every day."

"I keep thinking I'll wake up and it'll all be normal again. Him alive. The company stable. Us..." She stopped herself, but something in his face changed. Something cracked open.

"Normal left six months ago, Margo," he said. "But maybe that's not the worst thing."

The cat jumped onto the windowsill, then onto her desk, curling up beside the fedora like it belonged there. Outside, the first snow of winter began to fall, white and relentless as time itself. Margot reached for David's hand across the desk, and for the first time in months, she didn't feel the weight of anything at all.