What Still Remains

Martha stood at the kitchen window, watching the rust-colored fox trot across her backyard with the confident stride of a creature who owned this place long before she did. At seventy-two, she appreciated that kind of certainty.

'Gran! Gran! Look at Barnaby go!' Little Caleb's voice carried from the pond behind the house. Her old golden retriever, now achy and gray-muzzled, was swimming toward the floating toy with surprising determination.

'Slow down, Barnaby,' Martha murmured, though she knew he wouldn't. Some things couldn't be rushed, and others wouldn't wait.

Her granddaughter Lily emerged from the screened porch, phone in hand. 'They're making me watch this show about zombies again,' the teenager complained. 'Gran, why does everyone like watching dead people come back to life?'

Martha smiled, thinking of Arthur. Forty years gone, and still she caught herself setting two places for dinner. Still she'd reach for his hand in empty spaces.

'Because, sweetheart,' Martha said softly, 'we all want to believe love doesn't end just because someone leaves us. That's what those zombie stories are really about, isn't it? The things that refuse to stay dead.'

The fox paused at the garden's edge, watching them with ancient amber eyes. Arthur had been buried in that garden—his favorite spot, beneath the oak tree. Now the fox's kits played there every spring, life continuing in its own stubborn way.

Caleb came running up, wet and breathless. 'Barnaby's still swimming! He's been going forever and ever!'

'That's because he's chasing something he can't catch, silly,' Lily said, without looking up from her phone.

'No,' Martha corrected gently, placing a hand on each child's shoulder. 'He's swimming because he still remembers what it feels like to be young in the water. Some habits, like some loves, you never outgrow.'

The fox dipped its head in what almost looked like acknowledgment before disappearing into the woods. Barnaby finally emerged from the pond, dripping but triumphant, toy clamped gently between his teeth.

'What did I tell you?' Martha said, as Arthur's laughter seemed to echo in the warm afternoon air. 'The good things always find their way home.'