Seeds of What We Sowed

The papaya sat on the counter like a tropical accusation, its mottled yellow skin gathering dust where Elena had left it three days ago. Marcus wanted to throw it out, but something about its slow decay felt appropriate.

"You're still going?" he asked, not looking up from his phone.

Elena stood in the doorway wearing her padel skirt—the one with the small stain near the hem she'd never been able to remove. The sport had been his idea initially, something they could do together that didn't involve talking about the things they couldn't fix. Now she played with a doubles partner from work, a woman named Sarah who laughed loudly and had perfect teeth.

"Sarah's waiting," Elena said. "We have a tournament next weekend."

Marcus nodded. "Right."

The silence between them had grown so vast he could almost feel it pressing against his chest. Six months of doctor's appointments, of hormone injections, of tracking cycles and eating organic everything. Of spinach salads and fertility smoothies and careful conversations about adoption that neither of them actually wanted to have.

The papaya began to rot from the inside out—soft, sweet, and secretly decaying. Like them, really.

"Marcus—"

"Go," he said. "Sarah's waiting."

She hesitated, then turned toward the door. The skirt swished around her thighs.

He waited until he heard the garage door close before picking up the papaya. It yielded under his fingers, soft as a bruise. He carried it to the backyard, where their neglected vegetable patch struggled in the heat. The spinach had long since bolted, gone to seed in bitter, flowered stalks that no one had bothered to harvest.

Marcus dug a hole with his bare hands, black soil under his fingernails, and buried the fruit whole. Some things you planted knowing they'd never grow. Some things you tended to anyway because the alternative was admitting you'd already given up.

He washed his hands at the outdoor spigot, water running over his wrists like time he couldn't get back. Inside, his phone lit up with a notification from Sarah: a photo of Elena on the padel court, mid-swing, face flushed with something like joy.

Marcus deleted it without saving.

The papaya would rot underground, feeding soil for something new. Whether anything would grow was another question entirely.