Cable to Nowhere

Marcus stared at the vitamin bottle on his desk—D3, 5000 IU, the same brand Sheila had bought him three months ago before she walked out. The orange plastic cylinder sat next to his monitor like a paperweight for a marriage he'd forgotten how to nourish.

Outside his office window, lightning fractured the Chicago skyline, illuminating the suspension bridge of the Chicago River. He thought about the cables holding it up—how something so delicate could support so much weight, yet here he was, a forty-five-year-old man who couldn't hold together a ten-year marriage.

"You're like a fucking sphinx," Sheila had said during their last conversation. "All riddles, no answers. Ask me anything about structural engineering, you'll give me a dissertation. Ask you how you're feeling? Silence."

He'd accused her of being dramatic. She'd accused him of being emotionally constipated. They'd both been right.

His phone buzzed. A text from his younger brother: "Remember when you told me the stock market was a bull trap in '19? You were right. I should've listened."

Marcus almost laughed. The bull market had been his escape—obsessive research, endless analysis, anything to avoid sitting with his own thoughts. He'd made money. He'd lost sleep. He'd lost Sheila.

The thunder rattled his window. He opened the vitamin bottle and dry-swallowed two capsules without water. What was the point of extending his life if he didn't know how to live it?

Sheila had left him something else besides the vitamins—a letter she'd written but never mailed. He'd found it tucked into a book on Egyptian mythology, of all things. "I don't want to solve your riddles anymore," she'd written. "I want someone who gives me answers without me having to ask."

Marcus stood and walked to the window. The rain streaked against the glass like tear tracks he couldn't cry. Tomorrow he would call her. Not to fix things—he knew some bridges couldn't be rebuilt—but to finally give her the answer she'd deserved all along.

That he was sorry. That he was scared. That he didn't know how to be vulnerable, but he wanted to learn.

The lightning flashed again, and for the first time in months, Marcus didn't look away.