What We Bear

The cabin had been Marcus's sanctuary—until the accident. Now it was Elena's burden, though she'd never called him a friend, not even at the funeral. Not after what she'd found on his phone that morning at the hospital, while his heart was still somehow beating.

Lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the mounted grizzly bear in the corner of the room. Marcus had shot it years ago in Alaska, preserved its mouth in a permanent roar. Elena had always hated it—the glass eyes that seemed to follow her, the way its fur caught dust motes in the afternoon sun. Tonight, in the storm's stuttering flashes, it looked almost alive.

She poured whiskey into a chipped mug. The storm had knocked out power an hour ago. Her phone showed one bar of signal, enough for the text she'd been drafting for three days.

The truth was, she'd been sleeping with David for six months. David, who'd stood beside her at the memorial, who'd placed a hand on her lower back while she'd stared at Marcus's closed casket. David, who was probably wondering why she'd driven to Marcus's cabin alone instead of coming over like she'd promised.

Another flash of lightning. The bear's teeth gleamed.

Marcus had known. She was certain of it now—the late nights he'd spent in his study, the passwords he'd changed, the way he'd looked at her in those final weeks. He'd never said anything. That was the hell of it. He'd just died with it, left her to survive in the wreckage of her own making, surrounded by his things and his silences.

The bear outside the window moved. Not the taxidermy one—a real shadow, massive and dark, lumbering past the glass. Elena's breath caught. She should be afraid. Instead, she found herself envying its simplicity. It moved through the storm because it had to. It didn't lie. It didn't pretend.

She picked up her phone and deleted the text to David. Then she typed a new one to Marcus's sister:

I'm not keeping the cabin. Sell it.

Send.

The bear's shadow disappeared into the trees. Lightning struck somewhere close, thunder shaking the floorboards. Elena sat in the dark and finally, for the first time since the funeral, she cried—not for Marcus, and not for what she'd lost. She cried for what she'd never really had.