What the Storm Takes

Margot stood on her front porch at three in the morning, watching the storm tear across the valley. Lightning fractured the sky into electric ribbons, each flash illuminating the For Sale sign that had been staked into her lawn for exactly forty-seven days.

Inside, her phone lit up with a notification from Jamie. Are you awake?

Margot's thumb hovered over the screen. Jamie had been her best friend since college, her person through divorces and promotions and that year Margot's mother died. Then came the conference room incident, the whispered words about Margot that traveled through their firm like poison. Jamie had said nothing. Done nothing. Just watched as Margot's reputation unraveled.

Another flash of lightning struck somewhere closer, and Margot's phone buzzed again. I saw that bear again. The one in the backyard. You should come inside.

Margot had never seen a bear, though Jamie mentioned them constantly now. Imaginary bears, she'd thought, another thing about Jamie she couldn't quite understand anymore. But the lightning revealed something massive moving between the trees at the edge of her property—a shadow that detached itself from the darkness, hunched and deliberate.

The bear ambled toward her porch, calm as a house pet. Margot should have been afraid. Should have run inside and locked the door. Instead, she found herself thinking how strange it was that this wild creature had more right to be here than she did. She'd bear witness to its presence, uninvited but undeniable.

The bear paused at the bottom of the steps, watching her with eyes that reflected another fork of lightning, and in that crystalline moment, Margot understood: Jamie had been right all along. The bears were real. Jamie had been trying to tell her something important through all those mentions, and Margot had been too hurt, too proud to listen.

The bear turned and vanished into the night as the rain began to fall in earnest. Margot's phone lit up one last time: Please come inside. Let me explain.

Some things could still be salvaged from the wreckage. Not everything the storm took had to stay gone.