Root Rot

The palm plant on Marcus's desk had been dying for three months, its fronds brown and brittle, a mirror to the marriage he hadn't admitted was over yet. At 42, he'd mastered the art of pretense—showing up to meetings, smiling at his husband across the dinner table, watering a plant that had clearly given up on living.

"Marcus, you need to eat," David had said that morning, pointing to the spinach leaves wilting in the colander. "They're going to rot."

They were already rotting. Everything was.

The corporate retreat was in Palm Springs, a coincidence cruel enough to be funny. Marcus stood by the hotel pool, watching his colleagues get drunk on corporate-sponsored mai tais. Somewhere beyond the fence, a dog barked repeatedly—a sound that carried him back to childhood, to before he learned that wanting things could break you.

"You okay?" It was Elena from HR. She held a plastic cup with a goldfish swimming inside—some party favor from the welcome banquet. The fish kept darting to the cup's edges, looking for an escape that wasn't there.

"Fine," Marcus said. "Just thinking."

"About what?"

About how he'd spent two decades climbing a ladder that led nowhere. About how he'd stopped writing poetry in graduate school because someone told him it wasn't practical. About how David looked through him now, like he was a window and not a person.

"About water," he said instead.

Elena laughed. She tipped the cup, and the goldfish splashed. "Deep thoughts."

Marcus went back to their room and packed. The divorce papers were already drafted, sitting in his desk drawer under the dying palm. He'd start teaching creative writing at the community college in September. It would pay less than half his current salary, but last week he'd written a sonnet about grief, and for the first time in years, he hadn't felt like he was drowning.

He left the palm plant behind. Someone else could water it. Someone else could pretend.