What We Keep

The apartment was ours — or would be, for three more days. Elena sat on the floor with the last box between us, her back against the wall where we'd measured our children's heights in pencil marks that would soon paint over. The cat, Merlin, wound through her legs, purring like he still believed in permanence.

'You're keeping him?' I asked.

'He prefers women.' A half-smile. 'Also, he's practical. You'll be fine.'

I nodded. Outside, a dog barked itself hoarse in the neighboring yard — some untrained thing that never learned when enough was enough. God, I hated that sound. Had for years. Elena used to whisper 'poor thing' whenever it started up. Tonight she didn't even blink.

'What about the bar?' I tried. 'Your dad's place?'

'Selling it.' She didn't look up. 'Too much bull, not enough business.'

The Bull's Head. Thirty years of her family's history, ground into the floorboards and the backs of mismatched chairs. I'd met her father there, back when he still poured heavy and laughed like something vital hadn't already left him. We'd closed it down the night he died, Elena and I, drinking shot for shot with his regulars until we couldn't stand. She'd thrown up in the alley. I'd held her hair back and thought, this is it. This is the woman.

Now she stood, dusting her hands on jeans I'd bought her three birthdays ago.

'The market's different now,' she said. 'People want craft cocktails and USB ports, not stories and scars.'

'Scars are all that's real.'

She looked at me then. Really looked. 'That's your problem, Marc. You think suffering proves something. You think the wound is the point.'

'Isn't it?'

'No.' She lifted the box. 'The healing is. What you build after. That's the story.'

The dog barked again. Merlin stopped purring.

'Send me his vet records,' she said at the door. 'And the new place, when you find one.'

'I will.'

'Marc.' She paused, keys in hand. 'Don't wait for the wound to feel like home.'

The lock clicked. The silence was something I could work with.