What We Carry

The dog—Barnaby, a rust-colored retriever mix—sat by the door with his chin on his paws, watching me pack. His bowl was still in the corner, half-full of kibble he hadn't touched since Tuesday, when Mark's sister came to collect his things.

I'd found the papaya in the back of the fridge, forgotten and overripe. We'd bought it on a whim at that farmers market in Santa Cruz, the weekend before the diagnosis. Mark had held it up to the sun, laughing about how neither of us knew how to pick one. It was supposed to be the start of something—cooking together, trying new things. Instead it sat there for three weeks, turning soft and gravid with possibility, a small, stupid symbol of everything we'd run out of time for.

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, and for a second the kitchen went white. Barnaby lifted his head, sighed, settled back down.

The baseball tickets were taped to the refrigerator door: Giants vs. Dodgers, September 15th. We'd had season tickets for five years. Last season, after the bone marrow biopsy, Mark made it to exactly three games. The seats would be good again this year—right behind home plate, close enough to see the players spit and adjust their cups. I'd wondered if I should give them to someone else, but something about surrendering our place in the world, even just two plastic seats, felt like admitting defeat.

"It's too much to bear, isn't it?" Mark had said, two nights before he died. We were lying in the hospital bed, his body curved around mine, his breath shallow and wet.

"What?"

"Leaving. You'll have to do everything alone."

I'd pressed my face into his shoulder, already memorizing the topography of loss.

Now I stood in the kitchen we'd painted yellow together, holding a papaya that had spoiled while we waited for a future that never arrived. The lightning flashed again. Barnaby whined.

I threw the fruit in the trash. Then I took down the tickets. Then I called Mark's sister to ask if she wanted the dog. Some things you get to keep. Some things you bear. And some things, you finally learn, you have to leave behind.