What We Carry

The orange light of late afternoon caught her wedding ring as she reached for the door. Inside the house, the dog—Arthur's dog, really, a golden retriever named June—sat by the window, waiting. She hadn't running in months, not since the funeral. That was what had brought them together initially: they met at a 5K, both sweating and miserable, both pretending they were there for the charity rather than the loneliness.

She pressed her palm against the cold glass, watching June lift her head at the sound. Arthur had loved this dog more than he'd loved anything in their last years together. More than he'd loved her, though they'd never said it aloud. Some things you bear without speaking.

The real estate agent had warned her about the market. "You're running against the clock," he'd said, orange tie perfectly knotted, smile too practiced. "Homes like this, they sit. Especially now."

She'd laughed bitterly. "This house sat for forty years before Arthur bought it. It can wait a little longer."

Inside, June's thumping tail against the floorboards echoed through empty rooms. She stepped across the threshold, the scent of Arthur's pipe tobacco still clinging to the walls despite three months of windows thrown open. The real estate agent suggested potpourri. She'd told him some ghosts you don't exorcise with cinnamon sticks.

June bounded toward her, nails clicking on hardwood, and for a moment the house felt alive again. The dog collapsed at her feet, offering her belly the way Arthur used to offer his vulnerabilities—rarely, and always at inconvenient moments.

"I can't keep you," she whispered, the first time she'd said it aloud. June's brown eyes held something like understanding, or perhaps that was just projection speaking.

Her phone buzzed. An email from the lawyer, another about the estate, reminders that grief came with paperwork. She'd bear the weight of it all, eventually. That's what adults did—they carried what they couldn't put down, and called it living.

The orange sun dipped below the horizon as she sat on the floor with June, the dog's warmth against her thigh, the house settling around them like a held breath. Tomorrow she'd make the call. Tomorrow she'd pack boxes. Tomorrow she'd figure out how to bear this absence without folding under it. For now, she ran her palm through June's golden fur, pretending she wasn't crying, pretending she wasn't grateful for the weight of something living beside her.