Inventory of Absence

Maya stood in the center of what had been their living room, now stripped to its subfloor and hollowed-out echoes. Her iPhone lit up with another text from David's lawyer—something about mediation, about equitable division—as if five years could be measured in coffee tables and bookshelves.

On the fireplace mantel, the bronze sphinx they'd bought in Cairo watched her with its enigmatic smile. They'd argued over purchasing it, David calling it tourist kitsch, Maya insisting it was beautiful. *"The sphinx asks the right questions,"* she'd told him then. Now it seemed to be asking why they'd stayed so long in something that had stopped working years ago.

Outside, a neighbor's cat — a tabby with one torn ear — padded across the windowsill, then vanished. They'd talked about getting a cat once, back when they still made plans for a future they assumed they'd share. The talk had faded into the same silence that had swallowed everything else.

The grizzly bear rug lay rolled against the wall, David's eccentric bachelor purchase that Maya had grown to hate. It smelled of dust and something older, something that didn't belong in their modern rental. It was the first thing they'd agreed to sell when they listed the house. *"Better to let go of what doesn't fit,"* David had said, and Maya had wondered if he meant the rug or them.

Her iPhone pinged again. This time it was David himself: *"Can we talk?"

Maya's thumb hovered over the screen. The sphinx watched. Outside, the cat reappeared, pausing to look in through the glass. The bear waited to be carried away.

She typed back, then deleted it. Typed again. The thing about endings was that they asked you to know what you were keeping, and what you were finally ready to set down.