Rotten Papaya Season

I'd been running from the truth for three months, same way I ran circles around the neighborhood park each morning—breathless, heart pounding, pretending this was exercise instead of escape. The papaya sat on our kitchen counter, softening into something unrecognizable, much like whatever remained of my marriage.

Tom had brought it home from that bodega in Queens, said it reminded him of our honeymoon in Costa Rica. That was before I found the texts. Before I learned his late nights at the office had nothing to do with quarterly reports and everything to do with Sarah from accounting.

Now I sat behind home plate, watching our son Leo demonstrate how not to swing at a baseball that had already passed. He was ten, still believed in the honesty of umpires and fathers. Tom stood on the sidelines, coaching third base, shouting encouragement with the same practiced warmth he'd once reserved for me.

'You gonna eat that?' asked the woman beside me, nodding at the spinach salad in my lap.

I looked down. I'd forgotten about lunch entirely. 'Not hungry.'

'Your boy's got a good arm,' she said. 'Reminds me of my ex-husband. Always swinging for the fences, never connecting.' She laughed, dark and knowing. 'They all think they're still playing the game, don't they?'

Leo stepped up to the plate again. This time, he connected—a solid hit that sent the baseball sailing into left field. Tom cheered, but I watched something else: the way Sarah's daughter waved from the opposing team, the shared smile across the diamond. The papaya had rotted completely by the time I got home, its sweetness turned into something that attracted flies. I scraped it into the garbage without looking too closely at the mush, reminded myself that some things are better left to decompose than to pretend they're still something you can swallow.