What We Bear

The lake was colder than Miranda remembered, or perhaps she was just more fragile now. At 47, grief had a way of making everything sharper, the water's bite more vicious. She swam anyway, stroke after stroke, the rhythmic slash of her arms the only thing that quieted the static in her head. Swimming had been Paul's thing, actually. He'd been the one to drag her out of bed at dawn, the one who'd bought the lake house. Three years after his funeral, she still couldn't bring herself to sell it.

Barnaby—Paul's absurdly loyal chocolate lab—waited on the dock, his graying muzzle resting on his paws. The dog was ten now, arthritic and obstinate, a living breathing monument to a marriage that had ended too soon. Some days Miranda resented him for it. Other days, she buried her face in his fur and wept until he whined with concern.

Her sister thought she should date again. 'You're still young enough, Mira. You can't just—'

'Just what? Bear it?' Miranda had snapped. 'That's rich coming from you.'

The fight had been inevitable, really. Claire meant well, but she talked about Paul's death like a hurdle to clear, a chapter to close. She didn't understand that grief wasn't something you moved past. You learned to carry it, that was all. You learned to bear the weight of someone's absence until it shaped your posture, until you stopped noticing how it made you lean to one side.

Miranda treaded water, watching the sunrise bleed across the horizon. She used to come out here with Paul. They'd swim out to the raft and lie on their backs, holding hands, talking about everything and nothing. He'd make terrible jokes about bears in the woods—'Grizzlies, Mir. They're out there. Probably watching us right now.' She'd splash him, and he'd pull her under, and for a moment they'd be weightless together, suspended.

Now she swam alone, and Paul was somewhere else entirely. The thought was a dull ache she'd grown accustomed to, like a scar that throbbed in cold weather. Barnaby lifted his head and barked, sensing her distress. She began swimming back to him, stroke by stroke, toward the shore, toward another day without him, toward the long bare future she hadn't asked for but would somehow, impossibly, bear.