Last Tuesday at the Courts

Marcus stood at the baseline, the padel racket heavy in his hand. Across the net, Elena laughed at something her new partner said—some corporate lawyer with perfect teeth and an aggressive backhand. Marcus had invented an emergency at work to skip this week's match, but Sarah had made him come. "Don't let him win," she'd said, meaning Elena's date, meaning everything at once.

His golden retriever, Bear, lay curled on the bench nearby, head on paws, watching Marcus with those patient brown eyes. Bear was old now—fourteen, hips failing, the dog who'd weathered Marcus's divorce, the startup crash, the years of rebuilding. Bear had been there when Sarah moved in. Bear would probably be there when she moved out, if it came to that.

"Your serve," Elena called.

Marcus hit it into the net.

Later, over dinner that Sarah had prepared with painstaking care—spinach and feta stuffed chicken breasts, her latest attempt at cooking something he'd actually eat—he couldn't stop thinking about the way Elena had looked at the lawyer. Not with love, but with the easy comfort of someone who could still afford to be careless. Marcus had lost that capacity somewhere between the mortgage and the failed business venture.

"It's good," Sarah said, watching him push the spinach around his plate.

He forced himself to eat. The bitterness grounded him. "I'm just tired."

She reached across the table, her hand covering his. "Bear can sleep in the bedroom tonight. If his hips are bothering him."

Marcus thought about how long it had been since he'd let himself cry, how the padel matches had become another thing he performed rather than lived. How Sarah's kindness was the heaviest thing he carried.

"That would be good," he said, and meant it.