Palm Readings at Dawn

Mira had been running from herself for three years when she finally stopped at the papaya stand on the corner of 5th and Grand. The vendor, an old woman with skin like creased paper, sliced through the fruit's orange flesh with practiced precision. "You look like someone who's tired," the woman said, not unkindly.

"Aren't we all," Mira replied, watching juice drip down her wrist. She'd left David two weeks ago — left the glass-walled apartment, the bull market gains that meant nothing, the life that had curated itself around her like art she'd stopped seeing. Her palm had been itching for days, a nervous flutter she couldn't explain.

"You know what they say about itchy palms," the woman continued, sliding the fruit into a bag. "Money coming or money going."

Mira laughed, the sound rusty in her throat. "I've got plenty of money. Just not much else."

The bull — David's prized bronze sculpture that had dominated their living room — flashed through her mind. He'd called it "The Charging Bull of Our Future." She'd called it a three-ton paperweight. That argument had been the beginning of the end, or maybe the middle. Hard to tell when something had been dying since its conception.

She took a bite of papaya, the sweet flesh exploding against her tongue. "My mother used to say if you ate this at sunrise, you'd know what to let go of."

"And?" The old woman wiped her knife on a rag.

Mira looked at her palm, the lines crossing and recrossing like paths in a maze she'd been lost in for too long. "I think I already know."

The sun was coming up, painting the sky in impossible shades of apricot and gold. Somewhere in the distance, the city was waking up. Somewhere, David was probably asleep in their bed — his bed now — dreaming of IPOs and compound interest.

Mira finished the papaya, licked the last of the sweetness from her fingers, and for the first time in three years, stood completely still.