What We Bear

The funeral had ended three hours ago, but Mara still couldn't bring herself to leave her father's house. She sat on his worn leather armchair, her father's favorite hat resting on her knee—a crushed gray fedora that still smelled faintly of tobacco and rain.

Her phone buzzed. Sarah.

"You okay?" Sarah's text read. "I can come over."

Mara typed yes, then deleted it. Some things you had to bear alone.

She'd always envied Sarah's easy relationship with grief. When Sarah's mother died last year, she'd hosted a wake that turned into a celebration, complete with her mother's favorite playlist and too much wine. Mara couldn't even bring herself to sort through her father's closet without her chest tightening.

Another buzz. Sarah again: "I'm bringing wine. And that bear claw pastry you like from that place on 4th."

Mara almost smiled. Sarah had been her best friend since freshman year of college, back when they were both taking Lit 101 and pretending to understand Foucault. They'd weathered divorces, layoffs, the existential dread of their thirties. Sarah knew when to push and when to sit quietly beside you.

She set the hat on the side table and reached for her father's iPhone, which she'd found in his top drawer. He'd never really learned to use it properly—she'd had to talk him through password resets three times last year alone. But he'd insisted on keeping it, saying her mother's voice was on there somewhere.

The phone powered on with a familiar chime. Mara's thumb hovered over the voicemail icon.

The doorbell rang.

Sarah stood on the porch with a paper bag and that knowing expression. "I brought the good merlot," she said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. "And I may have stopped for ice cream too."

"You're a saint."

"No, I'm a friend who knows what death does to people." Sarah set the bag on the coffee table. "Have you eaten?"

"Couldn't."

"Right. Food first, emotional breakdown second." Sarah disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses and the bottle. "So. The hat." She gestured to the fedora. "You keeping it?"

"I don't know. It's not really my style."

"Your father wore it to your college graduation," Sarah said softly. "In the rain. He looked ridiculous and he knew it and he did it anyway because you were there."

Mara had forgotten that. She'd forgotten so much.

"Listen to this," Mara said, and played the voicemail she'd found—her father's voice, slightly slurred, leaving a message the night her mother died: "Just wanted to say I love you, kiddo. Always. Even when I'm rubbish at showing it."

Sarah's hand found hers. They sat there as the summer light faded, drinking merlot and listening to old messages, both of them bearing the weight of what it meant to love and lose and somehow keep going.