Salad for One

Marcia stood in her kitchen at 7 PM on a Friday, staring at the wilted spinach in her colander like it had personally offended her. At forty-three, Friday nights meant this: the dull rhythm of separation papers signed and delivered, her ex-husband already three months into a relationship with someone named—she'd checked his social media—Amber, who was twenty-eight and probably still had the metabolism to eat actual food.

She'd been running every morning for six weeks. Her therapist said it was about reclaiming her body after divorce. Marcia knew it was because she couldn't sleep.

The orange light from her sunset lamps bathed the kitchen in warmth she didn't feel. She should be getting ready for her date with David—the nice architect from her pottery class—but instead she was thinking about baseball.

Specifically, she was thinking about the afternoon her father had taken her to a Giants game when she was twelve. He'd bought her a foam finger, explained innings with the solemn patience of a man teaching his daughter the secret language of men. Three months later, he'd left for a 'business trip' and never come back. No letter. No foam finger compensation.

Her phone buzzed. David, cancelling. Something about his mother.

Marcia laughed—a sharp, ugly sound. Then she did something she hadn't done since she was twenty-two: she made herself a spinach salad with nothing but spinach, olive oil, and too much salt. She stood at the counter eating it with her fingers, watching the orange sunset fade to gray, thinking about how she'd spent two decades trying to be the kind of woman men wouldn't leave.

She couldn't bear it anymore—not the disappointment, not the performative femininity, not the waiting.

She rinsed her hands, turned off the sunset lamps, and called her son. 'Hey buddy,' she said when he answered. 'You want to come over tomorrow? We can make those spinach pancakes you like.'

She was forty-three, divorced, and eating salad with her fingers on a Friday night. But for the first time in years, she didn't hate herself for it.