Papaya at Sunset

Elena pressed her **palm** against the condo's floor-to-ceiling glass, feeling the warmth of the Hawaiian sunset even through the pane. The ocean beyond burned orange and gold, the same colors as the papaya she'd sliced for breakfast—their last breakfast together, she'd thought at the time.

Now, three days later, she sat alone with David's **bear**. A childish thing for a forty-seven-year-old architect to collect, but he'd won it at a carnival during their first anniversary, and somehow the matted stuffed animal had become a fixture in their life. Elena hated how its plastic eyes seemed to watch her, judging her for what she was about to do.

Her **iPhone** vibrated on the marble countertop.

*Katherine: Are you sure about this?*

Elena didn't answer. Instead, she picked up David's hat—a straw thing he'd bought in Mazatlán last year. It still smelled faintly of his cologne and coconut sunscreen. She'd worn it yesterday, pretending to be him, performing a silent one-woman show about a husband who didn't know his wife had fallen in love with someone else.

Not fallen in love. That wasn't right. She'd simply... stopped loving David. Somewhere between the condo remodel and their second failed IVF cycle, between his late nights at the office and her increasing withdrawal into her work as a forensic accountant, the love had eroded like sand beneath relentless waves.

Then came Marcus—brilliant, chaotic Marcus, who made her feel seen again. Who brought her papaya because he remembered she'd mentioned it once in passing. Who kissed her behind David's back and made her feel alive for the first time in years.

The **iphone** lit up again.

*Marcus: Flight lands at 9. Can't wait to see you.*

Elena's thumb hovered over the screen. She could text him back, tell him to come to her sister's place instead. She could pack David's bear and hat and papaya-stained memories into a box and disappear. She could choose.

The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in bruises of purple and red. Elena set down the phone, picked up the knife, and finished cutting the papaya. Its flesh was tender and sweet, everything she wasn't.

She texted Marcus: *I can't.*

Then she called David.

"We need to talk," she said, and waited, bear and hat and papaya arrayed before her like evidence at her own trial.