Division of Assets

The apartment was quiet except for the soft scratch of her pen on the legal pad. Maria sat at the kitchen table, listing their possessions in neat columns. Daniel stood by the sliding glass door, looking out at nothing.

"I'll take the blender," she said, not looking up. "You keep the coffee maker."

Daniel nodded, turning his iphone over and over in his palm. The screen had cracked three weeks ago — the night they fought about her mother, or maybe it was the night after, when neither of them could remember what started it but both knew it wouldn't stop.

"The papaya tree," he said, his voice rougher than he intended. "What happens to it?"

Maria finally looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry. She hadn't cried since she asked him to leave. "You planted it," she said. "It's yours."

"We planted it. At our housewarming."

"It's your house now, Daniel. Just like it was your apartment before, and will be your apartment after."

The papaya tree stood in a massive ceramic pot on the balcony, its leaves broad and glossy. They'd bought it together on a whim, from a roadside nursery, celebrating their first home as a married couple. Three years later, it had grown tall and lush, bearing fruit that tasted like summer mornings and better days.

Daniel remembered breakfasts on the balcony, scooping out the papaya's orange flesh, licking the sweet juice from each other's fingers. He remembered how they'd joked about what they'd name their children one day, how they'd grow old watching the tree reach toward the sky.

Now the tree would stay with this apartment, with whichever of them remained. It would keep growing, indifferent to the dissolution of everything beneath it.

"Take it," he said. "The tree."

Maria tilted her head. "What?"

"The papaya. Take it. I'll get an apartment with no balcony anyway."

She studied him for a long moment. Whatever she was looking for — weakness, regret, something to hold onto — she didn't find it. Or she found too much of it.

"Thank you," she said softly, and something in her expression shifted, just slightly. Not forgiveness, but recognition. Of what they'd had, and what they'd lost.

Daniel set his iphone on the counter, screen-down, beside his half of the dishes. He'd factory reset it later, wipe away the photos and messages and digital evidence of a life that no longer existed.

"I'll come by Saturday for my boxes," he said, already reaching for his keys.

"Daniel." Her voice stopped him at the door. When he turned, she was touching the papaya tree's trunk, her palm against the rough bark.

"I meant to tell you," she said, "it's got fruit starting. Small ones, but they're there."

He nodded, once, and let himself out.

In the hallway, he exhaled for what felt like the first time in three years. The papaya would fruit without them. It didn't need their marriage to grow.

His iphone buzzed in his pocket — a work email, nothing more. He pulled it out, cracked screen and all, and typed his response: starting fresh.