The Wellness Check

The cardiologist's office smelled of antiseptic and orange peel air freshener, an artificial attempt at comfort that made Mara's stomach churn. She'd been running three months now—three months since the call, three months since Elias's heart decided it was done beating. At forty-two, she was a widow in a world that kept insisting she should be optimizing her life.

"Your numbers look good," Dr. Patel said, not looking up from the monitor. "But your vitamin D is low. You're not taking the supplements I prescribed?"

Mara thought of the cabinet full of bottles at home. Elias had been the one who believed in them—spinach smoothies every morning, vitamins organized in those plastic organizers that divided days into little plastic tombs. Now she swallowed them mechanically, a ritual devoid of faith.

"I forget," she said.

"Stress will do that." Dr. Patel finally met her eyes. "How are you sleeping?"

Lightning cracked the window behind him, illuminating the rain streaking down the glass in jagged veins. Mara wanted to tell him about the nights she lay awake reaching for a body that wasn't there, how she still instinctively moved to the cold side of the bed before remembering. How she'd started running at dawn because exhaustion was the only thing that quieted the screaming in her chest.

"Fine," she said instead.

He nodded, made a note. "I'm writing you a prescription for something to help. And Mara—maybe take some time for yourself. Grief isn't linear."

She walked out into the storm, umbrella forgotten. The rain hit her like judgment. By the time she reached the apartment, she was soaked through, her expensive running shoes ruined. In the kitchen, she stared at the wilted spinach in the crisper drawer, bought three weeks ago with good intentions.

Her phone buzzed—her sister, checking in. Again.

Mara turned it off. She stood in the center of the kitchen, surrounded by the evidence of a life she no longer recognized: the vitamins, the organic produce, the running shoes by the door, all props in a performance of wellness she couldn't quite sell. The truth was, she didn't want to feel better. Feeling better felt like betrayal.

She threw the spinach in the trash. Then the vitamins. Then she opened the window and let the rain-soaked air fill the room, let herself stand there in her ruined clothes and feel, finally, something real.