Papaya at the Funeral

The funeral buffet featured sliced papaya arranged in precise, pitying rows. Elena stood before it, clutching a paper plate, wondering who had ordered tropical fruit for a man who'd hated anything sweet. David had been a whiskey-drinking, steak-eating kind of bastard. This papaya felt like his final joke—proof that even in death, his colleagues would get him wrong.

'You're not actually going to eat that, are you?'

She turned to find Marcus from Accounting, loosening his tie already. They'd been swimming in that hotel pool in Maui three years ago, drunk on mai tais and the thrill of the company retreat. He'd pushed her underwater when she tried to kiss him. The next morning, he'd pretended nothing happened. Some men carried their cowardry like a chronic condition.

'The funeral cat wants some,' she said, nodding toward the stray black cat winding between mourners' legs. It had appeared when they lowered the coffin, sitting on its haunches like it was waiting for applause.

Marcus laughed, a hollow bark. 'Still weird, Elena.'

She thought of the papaya's soft orange flesh, how it surrendered so easily to a spoon. Unlike people, who hardened with age. Unlike David, who'd died alone in his condo despite the hundreds of contacts in his phone. Unlike herself, still standing here, three years later, hoping Marcus might finally look at her without that careful distance in his eyes.

The cat brushed against her leg, its fur electric against her stockings. It knew something they didn't—about hunger, about dignity, about taking what you needed even when people were watching.

She fed the papaya to the cat.