Papaya Season

The papaya sat on my kitchen counter, its skin mottled with yellow like a bruise that wouldn't heal. Three weeks since Marcus left, and I was still buying for two.

Outside, thunder rattled the windowpanes. Rain was coming—I could feel it in my knees, the same way I could feel the absence where his toothbrush used to be.

"Mom, you okay?" Emma stood in the doorway, hair wet from her shower. At nineteen, she had his eyes, his tendency to hover when something was wrong.

"Fine. Just tired." I sliced through the papaya's flesh, black seeds spilling onto the cutting board like thoughts I couldn't organize. "How was your shift?"

She worked at the hospice facility now, feeding people whose bodies had outlived their minds. "Mrs. Diederich died today. Her son came in—hadn't visited in six months. Asked if there was anything he could take."

I stopped chopping. "And?"

"I told him she'd been keeping his letters in her nightstand. Even after she stopped remembering who he was." Emma leaned against the counter, watching me. "You're not eating, Mom."

The dog scratched at the back door. Buster—Marcus's dog, really. A golden retriever who'd chosen me in the divorce, as if he understood who'd actually been feeding him all these years.

I let him in, his fur damp from the gathering storm. He pressed his wet nose against my leg, and something in my chest cracked open.

"He called yesterday," Emma said quietly. "Dad. Wants to come back."

The papaya's sweet smell filled the kitchen, cloying and impossible. I looked at the rain streaking the glass, at my daughter who'd learned to be strong because I hadn't been, at the dog who'd stayed.

"What did you say?" I asked, though I already knew.

"That you'd been watering the plants he forgot existed. That you'd kept the house standing. That you'd been the parent all along, even when we were two kids playing house." She touched my shoulder. "He's the zombie, Mom. Not you."

Outside, the sky opened. Water cascaded down the windows, blurring the world into something soft and forgiving. I picked up a piece of papaya, let its sweetness fill my mouth, and for the first time in three weeks, tasted something real.