What We Bear

The cabin smelled of pine and damp wool. Maya watched from the window as the lake transformed—dark **water** churned under gathering clouds, the surface reflecting none of the sky's rage, only swallowing it whole.

"You should take your **vitamin**," David called from the bedroom. His voice carried that careful tone he'd used for six months, since the miscarriage, since everything between them had become fragile as glass.

Maya didn't answer. She thought instead of the goldfish they'd won at a carnival three years ago, how it had swum in endless circles in its bowl, and how David had cried when it died. The **goldfish** had lived six months—longer than their pregnancy.

"There's a **bear** been seen near the cabins," he continued, appearing in the doorway. "The ranger said to keep food locked up."

She turned to face him. David with his checklist of concerns, his practical love. He wanted to fix things. He thought if they were careful enough, careful with vitamins and bears and cabin doors, they could somehow avoid what was happening between them.

**Lightning** fractured the sky beyond him. In the sudden flash, she saw how tired he looked, how his shoulders had begun to curl forward, like he was carrying something he couldn't put down.

"I'm not going back to Minneapolis," Maya said.

The words hung between them. The rain began—hard, driving sheets against the glass.

"Maya—"

"I mean it. I can't live in that apartment anymore. I can't pretend we're fine."

He crossed the room and sat beside her on the worn sofa. They watched the storm together, two people who had promised forever, now measuring the distance between them in silence. His hand found hers, tentative, and she let him hold it. Some things you could fix. Some things you simply bore, like weather, like grief, like the slow work of learning each other again in the aftermath of everything that hadn't gone according to plan.

Outside, the rain fell harder. Inside, they sat without speaking as the storm passed through them both.