What We Carry

Sarah found him at the kitchen table at 3 AM, surrounded by spreadsheets. The harsh light cast his face in shadow—like something half-seen in a cave.

"Dave?" she whispered.

He looked up, eyes red-rimmed. "It's a pyramid scheme, Sarah. The whole thing."

"The firm?"

"Everything." He pushed a hand through thinning hair. "You work your way up thinking there's something at the top. But there isn't. There's just more climbing."

Sarah poured two fingers of whiskey, added a splash of water from the tap. She'd known this was coming—the job had been eating him alive for months.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." His laugh was dry. "I can't bear it anymore. That's what I know."

She set the glass in front of him. "Drink."

In the backyard, their dog lifted his head at the sound of glass on wood, then settled back into dreams. They'd gotten Buster the year they bought the house, back when life felt like something you could build brick by brick.

"You remember when we had nothing?" Dave asked. "That apartment with the leaking ceiling?"

"We had each other."

"We still do." He looked at her then, really looked. "Don't we?"

The question hung between them, heavier than the mortgage, heavier than the years of disappointed ambition.

Sarah took his hand across the table. His palm was rough, calloused from work he didn't believe in.

"We do," she said. "But you have to let yourself believe it."

Dave drank. The whiskey hit him like something honest.

Outside, the automatic sprinklers came on, water hitting pavement with a rhythmic hiss. In the morning, everything would be wet and gray and new.