Day 20 - Just Stay

Saturday morning gave Elliot nowhere to hide.

No meetings.

No walkthroughs.

No emails that required immediate answers.

Nothing urgent enough to become useful.

He made coffee.

Sat at the kitchen table.

Opened the manuscript.

Then closed it.

Opened it again.

There was a loose scene from The Smoking Car he had marked earlier in the week.

He already knew the line.

He had been avoiding the rest.

You don’t have to fix this. Just stay.

He read it again.

Then remembered a Tuesday in 2023.

Not because Tuesdays mattered.

Because grief had preserved certain ordinary dates with unreasonable clarity.

Megan had been sitting at the kitchen table when Elliot came home.

No television.

No laptop.

No book.

That should have warned him.

Instead, he noticed the unopened mail first.

Then the prescription bottle beside her.

Then the envelope from oncology.

“What happened?”

Megan looked up.

“Hi.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“You have the scan results?”

“No.”

“Then what’s that?”

She followed his eyes toward the envelope.

“Billing.”

He exhaled.

Megan watched him.

“Hi,” she said again.

He put his keys down.

“Sorry. Hi.”

“How was work?”

“Fine.”

That wasn't true.

Her question wasn't really about work either.

They were both becoming fluent in questions that meant other things.

Elliot opened the refrigerator.

“Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Food.”

“Megan.”

“A sandwich.”

“When?”

“Lunch.”

“It’s six thirty.”

“I know how clocks work.”

“That isn't dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He closed the refrigerator.

“You need to eat.”

Her expression changed.

Not much.

Enough.

“I know.”

“I can make something.”

“I said I’m not hungry.”

“You need something with the medication.”

“I know.”

“I could—”

“Elliot.”

He stopped.

She looked tired.

Not treatment tired.

Him tired.

That distinction landed badly.

“I’m trying to help.”

“I know.”

“Then what?”

Megan pressed her palms against the tabletop.

“Can you sit down?”

“I’m making dinner.”

“I don’t want dinner.”

“You need—”

“Sit.”

He stared at her.

Then pulled out the chair opposite.

Megan waited until he was seated.

For a second, neither spoke.

Then she said, “I’m scared.”

Elliot felt his body move toward the problem before his mind had finished hearing the sentence.

“About the scan?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did the doctor say something?”

“No.”

“Are you having pain?”

“No.”

“Then what changed?”

“Nothing changed.”

“Okay, but something—”

“Nothing happened.”

He stopped.

Megan’s eyes filled.

She looked angry about that.

“I’m just scared.”

Elliot leaned forward.

“The last labs were good.”

“I know.”

“And Dr. Patel said—”

“I know what she said.”

“The treatment is still—”

“I know.”

“Megan, I’m trying to tell you—”

“No.”

The word came out sharper than either expected.

She looked down.

When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.

“I don’t need you to talk me out of being afraid.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m reminding you what we know.”

“I know what we know.”

“Then what do you want me to say?”

She looked at him.

“Nothing.”

He felt irritation rise.

Immediate.

Defensive.

“Then I don’t understand what we’re doing.”

Megan flinched.

Not dramatically.

Barely.

Elliot saw it anyway.

And because fear made him stupid sometimes, he kept going.

“I’m doing everything I can.”

“I know.”

“Every appointment. Every call. I changed the project schedule. I’m tracking the medications. I have the questions for Monday. I—”

“I know.”

“Then what am I missing?”

Megan stared at him.

For a few seconds, Elliot could hear the refrigerator humming behind him.

Then she said:

“I’m still here.”

He frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m still here.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

He pushed back from the table.

“That’s not fair.”

“I didn’t say you’re doing anything wrong.”

“You just said—”

“I said I’m here.”

“And I said I know.”

Megan wiped beneath one eye, annoyed.

“You are so busy preparing for me to be gone that sometimes I don’t know if you notice I’m still sitting in front of you.”

The sentence hit him hard enough that anger arrived before understanding.

“That is unbelievably unfair.”

“I know you’re scared.”

“You think I’m planning your death?”

“I think you’re trying to survive it before it happens.”

He stood.

“I can’t do this.”

Megan looked at him.

“Exactly.”

He left the kitchen.

Not the house.

Just the room.

Which somehow made the memory worse.

Elliot stopped.

He had not realized he was remembering until the scene was already around him.

The kitchen was the same.

Same table.

Different light.

No Megan.

The argument had happened almost two years before she died.

They had resolved it.

Sort of.

That was the part grief always removed when it replayed the memory.

The ending.

It preferred the worst sentence.

The walk out of the room.

The look on Megan’s face.

He had carried that version for months after her death.

Proof that he had failed something.

He opened the manuscript again.

The fictional scene waited.

The woman sat at the edge of the hotel bed while rain struck the windows.

The man stood by the door.

He had already offered three solutions.

A telegram.

Another train.

Money.

A replacement.

Each answer had made her face close slightly more.

Finally he said, “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

The woman looked at him.

“Nothing.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It is.”

He shook his head.

“You’re upset.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t want me to fix it.”

“No.”

“What do you want?”

She held out her hand.

“Stay.”

He looked at it.

Then at her.

“That’s all?”

“That’s not small.”

The man sat beside her.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then:

“I’m bad at this.”

“I know.”

“That feels unnecessarily honest.”

“You asked.”

He took her hand.

“What if I say the wrong thing?”

“You probably will.”

“What if I can’t make it better?”

“You can’t.”

He nodded slowly.

The woman rested her head against his shoulder.

After a moment, the man said, “I’m scared too.”

She squeezed his hand.

“I know.”

They stayed there.

The rain continued.

Nothing improved.

Elliot read the final line several times.

Nothing improved.

Megan had underlined it herself.

In the margin:

important

That almost made him laugh.

Of course.

The point of the scene was that nothing got fixed.

No solution.

No changed circumstance.

Two people just remained.

He looked toward the kitchen.

The real argument continued returning.

But this time, he forced himself past the part grief preferred.

What happened after he left?

He had gone upstairs.

Stood in the bedroom.

Been furious for perhaps six minutes.

Then less furious.

Then ashamed.

He remembered that.

He had gone back down.

Megan was still at the table.

He had sat beside her instead of across from her.

He had not apologized immediately because Megan hated apologies delivered before the apologizer understood what they were apologizing for.

He had said:

“I don’t know how to do this.”

Megan had answered:

“Neither do I.”

He had said:

“I’m scared.”

And Megan—

Elliot closed his eyes.

Megan had reached for his hand.

Not forgiven him.

There had been nothing to forgive yet.

Just reached.

They sat there for a long time.

Later, he made toast.

She ate half a piece.

Why had he forgotten that?

No.

He hadn't forgotten.

He had edited.

Grief had taken the argument and ended it at the cruelest possible point.

Megan's manuscript had reminded him to keep reading.

His throat tightened.

“That’s not fair either,” he said to the empty kitchen.

Not to Megan.

To himself.

He had spent four months prosecuting a case using only the evidence against him.

He had loved her imperfectly.

So had she.

They had hurt each other.

Adjusted.

Repeated mistakes.

Learned slowly.

Stayed.

That was marriage.

Not a final performance graded after death.

He looked down at the page.

Megan’s note:

important

Beneath it, Elliot wrote:

Nothing improved. We stayed anyway.

He stopped.

Changed it.

Nothing improved. We stayed.

Better.

He spent the afternoon without reading another train story.

That felt important.

Instead, he sat in Megan’s office.

At first with coffee.

Then without.

He looked through the window.

Answered one text from Marcus.

Ignored two emails that could wait until Monday.

Moved none of Megan’s things.

Cataloged nothing.

Searched nothing.

At three fourteen, his instinct told him he was wasting the day.

He let the thought pass.

At three twenty-seven, he almost opened the spreadsheet.

He didn't.

At four, light shifted across the floor.

The leaning plant cast a long shadow beside the desk.

Elliot noticed it needed turning.

He left it alone.

For once, not everything required correction.

He sat in Megan’s chair and remembered things without forcing them into categories.

Her laugh.

Her terrible driving directions.

The infertility years.

The treatment binder.

The night they fought about whether fear required evidence.

The morning after a good scan when Megan insisted they go out for breakfast even though Elliot had a meeting.

The time she threw a throw pillow at him because he said throw pillows were economically indefensible.

The final months.

The middle years.

Before cancer.

After.

All of it.

At some point, Elliot realized he had been sitting in silence for almost two hours.

No music.

No television.

No manuscript.

Nothing to accomplish.

He thought of Megan at the kitchen table.

I’m still here.

He understood it differently now.

Not as an accusation from someone who believed he had failed to notice her.

As a request.

Come back to this moment.

Stop living inside the one you're afraid of.

Be here.

Elliot looked around the office.

“I’m here,” he said.

Then immediately shook his head.

“No.”

He smiled faintly.

Wrong answer.

He tried again.

“Okay.”

That was enough.

At dusk, Elliot stood to leave.

On the desk, the manuscript page remained beneath the lamp.

Nothing improved.

Megan’s underline.

important

And Elliot’s response:

Nothing improved. We stayed.

He turned off the lamp.

This time, he did not think of the office as a place Megan had left.

For one evening, it had simply been a place he stayed.