Palm Fronds at the End of the Line

The cat had been watching her for three days. Lena's ex-boyfriend's tabby, a sullen creature named Satellite, sat on the windowsill where the palm tree's fronds scratched against the glass. Each scrape sounded like a question she couldn't answer.

Lena worked from her apartment now, stripped of her corner office, her team, her identity. The fiber optic cable that had once delivered her corporate empire now delivered termination emails and severance negotiations. She'd spent the morning on video calls with HR, her pixelated face frozen in professional expressions she no longer felt.

"You should keep him," her ex had said when he dropped Satellite off. "I'm moving to a place that doesn't allow pets. Besides, he likes you."

The cat liked nothing and no one. But here he was, witness to her unraveling.

Lena stood at the window, pressing her palm against the glass. The palm tree outside had grown unchecked for years, its trunk thickening, its crown spreading. It had survived droughts and storms and the indifference of neighbors who'd moved in and moved out. It remained while lives around it shifted and fractured.

The termination package sat on her desk. Generous, they'd said. Career-transition services. A cable to nowhere.

She thought about the last conversation with her mother, dead five years now. "You're climbing so high," she'd said. "Don't forget where you're rooted."

The cat jumped from the windowsill and wound around her legs, purring unexpectedly. Lena picked him up, his warmth solid and real against her chest. For the first time in three days, she felt something besides the hollow ache of loss.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."

Outside, the palm tree's fronds caught the afternoon light, golden-green against the gathering gray of evening. The cable behind her desk lay silent. Some connections sever cleanly. Others tangle, then knot, then hold.