What We Carry

The fox appeared at the edge of the driveway at dusk, thin and mangy, watching them with what Elena thought was accusation. She stood at the kitchen window, David's vitamin C tablet in her hand—the morning routine that had become evening, then forgotten entirely.

"You're watching that fox again," David said from the couch. The baseball game droned on television, another loss for a team that had been losing all season. He used to care about these games. Now they were just noise.

Elena turned from the window. His hair had thinned over the past year, the chemotherapy stealing it in clumps that she'd found in the shower drain, on their pillows, caught in her own clothes when she embraced him. The new growth was softer, fragile-looking.

"It looks hungry," she said.

"Everything's hungry." His voice was different now—rougher, as if something had worn down the interior of his throat.

She walked to the couch and sat beside him, not touching. The distance between them had grown physical, measured in inches that felt like miles. His oncologist had given them six months, maybe a year. That had been eight months ago. They were living in borrowed time, each day a small victory they didn't know how to celebrate.

"I can't bear it," he said suddenly, turning to her. "This. The waiting. The goddamn baseball games I don't even care about anymore. You watching that fox like it means something."

She set the vitamin on the coffee table. "What do you want, David?"

"I want to stop pretending this isn't happening. I want to stop pretending we're going to grow old together."

The fox moved then, loping across the lawn toward the neighbor's garbage bins.

"We're not pretending," Elena said, her voice steady. "We're just living. What else is there?"

He looked at her for a long moment, then reached for her hand. His fingers were cold, the bones prominent. "Love you," he said.

Outside, the fox found something in the garbage and dragged it into the shadows.

She squeezed his hand. "I know."