Papaya Season

The morning light hit his hair at that particular angle—silver now, not the sandy brown of their honeymoon in Maui. Elena watched him from the doorway, coffee cup warming her palms, as he leaned toward the bathroom mirror, tweezers in hand.

"Plucking again?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"There's another one." He didn't turn. "Right in the middle of my eyebrow. I can't go into meetings like this."

Elena set her coffee on the counter. The orange juice sat beside it, pulp settling at the bottom of the glass. She remembered drinking papaya straight from the halved fruit on that beach in Maui, the juice dripping down her wrists, him laughing as he licked the sweet stickiness from her skin. They'd been so hungry for each other then.

Now he was hungry for control.

"The meeting with Kearns is today, isn't it?" she said.

"The merger review." He finally turned, his eyebrow smooth and reddened from the plucking. "If this goes south, I'm probably looking at a restructure."

A restructure. The word landed between them like furniture being moved out of a room.

Elena opened the refrigerator, searching for breakfast. The papaya she'd bought yesterday sat on the middle shelf, its skin mottled with yellow spots, ripe and waiting. She'd bought it hoping to recreate something—a taste, a feeling, a version of themselves that no longer existed.

"You should eat something," she said.

"No time." He kissed her cheek, a perfunctory press of lips that missed its mark. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," she said to his retreating back.

The front door clicked shut. Elena stood in the quiet kitchen, the papaya heavy in her hands. She cut it open, the seeds scooping out easily, black and glossy. She lifted a spoonful to her mouth—sweet, musky, nothing like she remembered.

Maybe it had never been that sweet. Maybe she'd just been twenty-five and in love, and everything had tasted like possibility.

She scraped the rest into the sink and rinsed the bowl. The orange juice had formed a separation layer. She swirled it with her finger and drank it standing up, the sharp acid hitting her tongue. Somewhere in the bedroom, her phone buzzed—probably him, forgetting something again.

Elena wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and went to see what he'd left behind this time.