Appetite for Loss

Mara watched the orange sit on the plate between them, its bright skin dimpling in the restaurant's unforgiving light. Three years ago, David would have peeled it for her—section by section, leaving no bitter pith, only the tender fruit she loved. Now he barely looked at her.

She speared a piece of spinach from her salad. It caught between her teeth, a small annoyance she'd have pointed out once, joked about. Instead she chewed slowly, feeling the silence expand like water rising in a room she'd forgotten how to escape.

"The promotion came through," David said, not looking up from his phone. "Corporate wants me in Chicago."

She'd suspected. The late nights. The showering at the gym. The way his phone lit up with messages he angled away from her view. Still, hearing it made something tighten in her chest—a cable pulled too taut, fraying at the edges.

"When?" she asked, though she already knew.

"Month." He signaled the waiter. "They've got a pool at the new building. Rooftop." A ghost of a smile. "Remember how you always wanted one?"

She remembered. She remembered sitting on his apartment balcony six years ago, drunk on cheap wine and possibility, planning the life they'd build. She'd wanted a pool. He'd wanted to write. They were both going to be braver than their parents, more authentic, less compromised by expectations and debt and the slow erosion of dreams.

The waiter refilled her wine glass. She drank deeply, feeling the alcohol's familiar warmth.

"And the book?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"There's time. Chicago's good for that. Creative scene." Another glance at his phone. "But mostly, it's the money. You know how it is."

She did. They were drowning in it—student loans, the mortgage on the condo they'd bought at peak market, the IVF treatments that had failed three times before they stopped counting. The apartment needed a new roof. His mother needed nursing care. The weight of it was a bear that had taken up residence in their lives, and they'd both been pretending it wasn't there, sleeping in the same bed with something massive and breathing between them.

She reached for the orange. Peeling it herself, her fingers found the natural sections, broke them apart. The first piece was impossibly sweet. The second, she realized, had started to rot from the inside—soft where it should have been firm, bitter where it should have been bright.

"I'm not coming with you," she said.

He finally looked up. "What?"

"To Chicago. I'm not going."

The waiter appeared with the check. They split it—the way they'd split everything for years, evenly, without discussion, until there was nothing left of either of them.

Outside, the city hummed around them. David walked toward the train. Mara stood on the sidewalk watching him go, the taste of that sweet-and-rotten orange still in her mouth, and realized she was hungry for the first time in years.