What We Carry

Elena worked the spinach between her fingers, the cold water numbing her skin. The leaves had been vibrant yesterday; now they were already beginning to wilt, much like everything else in her life lately.

'So I told him,' Mark was saying, his voice rising and falling with the cadence of workplace grievance, 'that if he wanted that report by Friday, he'd need to—'

Lightning split the sky beyond the kitchen window, briefly illuminating the wine stain on the carpet they'd been meaning to clean for six months. The storm had been threatening all day, just like this conversation.

'Mark.' She stopped him, her hands stalling in the colander. 'Did you hear what I said?'

He paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. 'Something about your dad?'

'Dr. Chen called. His vitamin B12 is dangerously low. They're recommending injections.'

'Okay. That's good, right? It's fixable.'

Elena turned off the faucet. The silence that filled the kitchen was heavier than it should have been, weighted with all the things she wasn't saying. About how her father had forgotten her name last Tuesday. About how she'd found his car keys in the freezer yesterday morning. About how she and Mark hadn't had sex in two months, or a real conversation in longer than that.

'The bear,' she said suddenly.

'What?'

'When I was little, my dad bought me this stuffed bear for my fifth birthday. Brown, with one ear that drooped. I carried it everywhere until I was twelve. Gave it a name, talked to it like it was real.' She looked at Mark. 'Last week, I found it in his closet. He'd saved it all these years.'

Mark set down his fork. The lightning flashed again, closer this time, and she saw the realization dawn in his eyes. 'Oh, El.'

'I can't bear it,' she said, the words tearing loose. 'I can't bear watching him disappear. I can't bear that he remembers a stuffed bear from when I was five but can't remember who I am now.'

Mark crossed the kitchen and pulled her against him, and for the first time in months, she let herself collapse into someone else's strength. The spinach lay forgotten in the sink. The rain began in earnest, drumming against the roof, drowning out everything but the sound of her own heart breaking, again and again.