Midcourt Observation

The cat watches me from the windowsill, its yellow eyes unblinking as I swallow my daily handful of vitamins—D for bones, B for energy, omega-3 for a heart that's already given too much. Outside, the padel court waits beneath gray suburban skies, my Tuesday night ritual with men I barely know, all of us bearing the weight of marriages that stopped working years ago.

I should leave. The divorce papers are signed, the apartment leased. Instead I stay, becoming a spy in my own disintegrating life, observing Elena's movements through the house we built together. She doesn't know I've started tracking her location again—just harmless checking, I tell myself, the way a recovering alcoholic checks the liquor cabinet. Just to know.

The cat meows, demanding breakfast. It's her cat now, officially, but it still sleeps at the foot of my bed in the guest room where I've been exiled.

"You too," I whisper, setting down the bowl. "Even you're spying on me."

On the padel court that evening, Marcus serves with vicious precision. He's newly divorced, his anger fresh and sharp. We play hard, the ball slamming against the glass walls, a language of violence disguised as sport. Afterward, beers sweat on the bench as he recounts every text from his ex-wife, every court date, every betrayal. I nod, sip my vitamin water, and say nothing about Elena. About the tracking app. About the dark vitamin C-shaped bruises on my arms where I pinch myself to feel something.

The bear that lives in the forest behind our subdivision—our subdivision—raided the trash again last night. I saw its tracks in the mud this morning, massive and purposeful, marking territory that no longer belongs to it. Somewhere between the vitamins and the padel court and the spying, I've become like that bear: roaming the ruins of a habitat that's moved on without me.

Tonight, I'll delete the tracking app. Tomorrow, I'll find a new place with no windowsill for a cat to judge me from. But not yet. First, one more game of padel, one more beer with Marcus, one more night in the guest room where I can still hear her breathing through the walls.