What Remains

Marcus stood in the supplement aisle, fluorescent lights humming overhead, staring at the orange plastic bottle of **vitamin** D-3 that Elena had texted him to buy three times. At forty-seven, he was becoming the kind of man who had opinions about calcium absorption and joint health. His father had been dead at sixty-two. Heart attack. Every pill was a bargaining chip against genetics.

He'd started losing his **hair** at thirty-five, gradual at first, then aggressive after Elena's miscarriage two years ago. Now he kept it buzzed close, pretending it was a choice rather than surrender. Elena still ran her fingers over his scalp some nights, the touch both tender and devastating.

The palm reader's shop had appeared overnight in the vacant storefront next to his office. Marcus had walked past it for weeks before something—curiosity, despair, the desperate need to know if this was all there was—propelled him inside.

She was older than he expected, her face mapped with deep fissures, eyes the color of weak tea. She didn't ask his name. Simply extended her hand, **palm** up, and waited.

Marcus placed his hand in hers. Her skin was dry, paper-thin.

"You're waiting for the other shoe to drop," she said, tracing the life line that forked unexpectedly near the middle. "You think you can prepare yourself for loss by obsessing over prevention. Vitamins, check-ups, insurance policies." Her nail caught against a smaller line branching upward. "But grief has its own schedule."

He pulled his hand back, heart hammering. "Can you see—"

"I see a man who's still here," she said softly. "Still breathing. Still loved. That's the only prediction that matters."

Marcus walked home in the rain, clutching the vitamin bottle. Let himself into their apartment where Elena was reading on the couch, her hair falling across her shoulder in a dark wave. She looked up, surprised to see him home early.

"I forgot the pills," he said, setting them on the table. "But I think I'm done trying to outrun it."

Elena closed her book and patted the cushion beside her. Marcus sat, and when she rested her head against his shoulder, he let himself believe that some things—this, her, the weight of her against his—might actually last.