Service Call

The coaxial cable hung from the living room wall like a severed artery, its copper wire exposed where Marcus had ripped it out during Sunday's fight. I stared at it while the technician worked, his back to me, the smell of burnt coffee still in the air from whatever he'd made before storming out.

"Ma'am?" The cable guy's voice broke through.

I hadn't heard him come up behind me.

"Need to reset the modem," he said. "Your phone?"

I handed him my iPhone without thinking—my whole life in that smooth black rectangle—and then realized what I'd done. The messages still open. The notification from HER still glowing across my screen:

"Can't wait to see you tomorrow. Same hotel?"

My husband's reply, sent twenty minutes ago while I was in the shower: "Me neither. She's working late again. Suite 417."

The cable guy didn't look down. He tapped at the screen, finished what he needed to, and handed it back face-down like it was something contagious. His professionalism felt like a kindness I didn't deserve.

I started laughing. Couldn't stop. It wasn't funny.

In the fridge, a bag of spinach liquefied slowly into green sludge. We'd bought it Sunday at Whole Foods, after couples therapy, after we'd promised to try harder. "We're eating healthier," Marcus had said, pressing his palm to my lower back in the produce aisle. "Starting now."

Now it was Thursday. The spinach was rotten. Marcus was at a "conference" in Chicago. I was standing in my kitchen with a cable technician who was pretending he hadn't just witnessed my marriage end.

"There," the technician said finally. "Everything's connected now."

He wouldn't meet my eyes. I wanted to thank him for not saying anything, but the words caught in my throat.

I watched him walk to his truck through the window. Then I called Marcus. Straight to voicemail, just like it had been for three days.

"The spinach is bad," I told his voicemail. "And so are you."

I hung up. Started opening drawers, began putting what mattered into boxes.