What We Keep

The lightning flashed again, illuminating the boxes stacked in what used to be our living room. Sarah's things. Three years of marriage, reduced to cardboard and tape.

Her dog Buster—my dog now, I supposed—whined at my feet. He'd been sleeping in her spot since she left three weeks ago. The vet had prescribed him some calming vitamin supplements, but I hadn't remembered to give him his dose. Neither of us was sleeping much anyway.

I opened the last box. Inside was the bear.

Not a real one. The stuffed grizzly she'd won at that carnival in Coney Island, our first date. She'd clutched it all night on the roller coaster, screamed with pure joy, and later, in my tiny apartment, she'd pressed that ridiculous cheap bear against my chest and whispered that she wanted forever.

The lightning struck closer this time. Thunder rattled the windows.

My phone buzzed. Sarah's name lit up the screen. We hadn't spoken since the lawyer's office.

"I can't believe I forgot him," she said when I answered. "Buster's heart medication. The vitamin supplements. Have you been giving them to him?"

"Every day," I lied. "He's fine."

"I'm coming back next week for the rest of my things."

"Okay."

"You were going to be a father, you know," she said suddenly. "Before. The lightning. When we lost the baby. You were so gentle with me then."

"And then I wasn't."

"No. Then you just... stopped being there. You disappeared inside yourself."

She was right. I had retreated into work, into silence, into anything that wouldn't force me to feel the weight of what we'd lost. Sarah had needed someone to hold her, and I had given her distance instead.

"I'm still here," I said now. "If you wanted to—maybe we could—"

"The bear," she interrupted. "You can keep it."

"What?"

"I don't need it to remember how it felt. To be loved by you. That part was real."

The line went dead.

I sat there in the half-light, Buster's head on my knee, that stupid carnival bear in my hands. The storm was moving east now. The room felt different—less empty, somehow. Less finished.

I reached for the bottle of vitamins on the counter, shook one into my palm, and whistled for the dog. We had some things to figure out. Tomorrow, I'd call her. Tomorrow, I'd ask properly.

Tonight, we'd just keep existing together in the quiet dark.