Last October at the Sink

The bathroom mirror caught me at an angle I'd been avoiding for months. There it was—the first silver thread cutting through my chestnut hair like a fracture in something I thought was unbreakable. I'm thirty-four, but in that fluorescent light, I felt ancient.

Margot used to run her fingers through my hair every morning while I brushed my teeth. She'd say it was the only thing about me that required no maintenance. That was October. Everything was orange then—the dying leaves on our street, the marmalade she spread on her toast, the terrible construction paper sign she made to welcome me home from my father's funeral. "Welcome home, my love," written in an orange Sharpie that bled through to the kitchen counter.

I turned on the faucet. Water cascaded into the sink, drowning out the silence she'd left behind. I cupped my hands beneath the flow and splashed my face, again and again, until my skin stung from the cold. Margot had loved water—the ocean, baths, the sound of rain against our bedroom window. She called it her element. I called it her excuse to never make decisions. "Go with the flow," she'd say when I asked about marriage, about children, about whether she actually loved me or just loved being loved.

The drain gurgled, swallowing the evidence of my attempt to feel something.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the orange I'd taken from the breakroom at work. Someone had left it in a bowl of free fruit—too soft, probably already rotting from the inside. I dug my thumbnail into the peel and tore it open. The scent hit me like a physical blow. Citrus and memory and mornings I couldn't get back.

I ate it standing over the sink, letting the juice run down my chin, not bothering to wipe it away. The sections were dry and mealy. Nothing like how I remembered oranges tasting when I was a child, when sweetness seemed possible.

"Go with the flow," I whispered to my reflection.

The drain kept swallowing water, taking everything down without complaint. Some things, I realized, were meant to be carried away by the current. I turned off the faucet and watched the last spiral of water disappear, leaving me alone with the silver thread and the taste of something that should have been sweet but wasn't anymore.