Signal Loss

The cable bill sat on the kitchen counter between them—a paper barrier neither wanted to cross. Maria stared at the bold letters PAST DUE while Thomas methodically peeled an orange, the citrus scent cutting through the stale air of their apartment.

"You said you'd handle it," she said, not looking up from her coffee.

"I forgot. I've been busy."

"Busy taking your vitamins? Busy googling symptoms?"

Thomas's jaw tightened. A strand of hair fell over his forehead—gray now, more of it every month. At thirty-five, they were both aging faster than they'd planned. The fertility treatments had done that. The waiting rooms, the blood draws, the phone calls with nurses who used their first names like they were old friends.

"The doctor said—"

"I know what the doctor said." Maria stood up, her chair scraping against the floor. "He said the same thing last month. And the month before."

Thomas finished sectioning the orange. He placed a piece on a napkin and slid it toward her. An offering. A surrender.

"I read something new," he said quietly. "About male fertility supplements. There's this combination of—"

"Stop." Maria's voice cracked. "Please, Thomas. Just stop."

She walked to the window. Outside, the cable repair truck was parked across the street, its worker climbing a pole with practiced indifference. Someone somewhere had lost their signal, and they'd called, and someone had come to fix it. Simple cause and effect.

"What happens," she asked the glass, "if we just... accept it?"

Thomas was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded hollow. "You mean give up."

"I mean stop fighting. Stop measuring. Stop hoping."

She turned to face him. The morning light caught the gray in his hair, the weary lines around his eyes. She remembered when they'd lain in bed at twenty-two, planning futures they assumed were theirs. The certainty of youth.

"We could be happy," she said. "We're not happy now."

Thomas pushed the orange sections away. The vitamin bottles on the counter rattled as his hand bumped them—D, E, CoQ10, zinc, a pharmacy of hope in plastic containers.

"I don't know how to be happy without this," he admitted. "It's been three years. This is who we are now."

Maria crossed the room and took his hand. His palm was dry, the fingers familiar. Some connections didn't need fixing. Some signals stayed strong through every kind of weather.

"Then we learn," she said. "Together."

Outside, the cable worker descended from his pole. The television flickered to life in the apartment next door. Somewhere, a signal had been restored.