What the Body Remembers

Julia stood in her kitchen at 2 AM, staring at a bag of spinach that had begun to rot in the crisper drawer. The slimy leaves reminded her of everything she'd neglected lately — her diet, her marriage, the life she'd carefully built over twenty years. At forty-three, she'd thought she'd have it figured out by now.

Her doctor had called that morning. The results weren't catastrophic, but they weren't good either. "Start taking a vitamin D supplement," she'd said, like that could fix the creeping realization that Julia was no longer young, no longer invincible. The body had ways of reminding you.

She thought about David, her ex-husband, and their last conversation at a coffee shop three years ago. He'd looked older than she remembered. Still carrying that emotional weight around like a wounded bear in winter, he'd told her he was sorry. Too late, she'd thought. Too many years spent being careful, being practical, being the person everyone needed her to be.

"You never let yourself want anything," he'd said, and she'd wanted to slap him. Wanting had never been the problem. It was the terror of actually reaching for it.

The spinach made a wet sound when she squeezed it into the trash. She opened the bottle of vitamins the doctor had recommended. The pills were enormous, horse pills that caught in her throat. She washed them down with tap water and leaned against the cold counter.

Tomorrow she'd turn forty-four. Tomorrow she'd go back to her job at the insurance firm where she'd worked for fifteen years. Tomorrow she'd be sensible again. But tonight, she let herself remember the bear they'd seen in Montana on that camping trip, how David had held her hand as they watched it from a distance, massive and terrifying and alive.

"We could be like that," he'd whispered. "We could just exist."

She'd laughed then. She wasn't laughing now. The vitamin bottle sat empty on the counter. Tomorrow, she decided, she would call him.