Supplemental

The vitamin bottles lined the kitchen counter like colorful soldiers—D3, B12, magnesium, fish oil capsules the size of grapes. Roger's morning ritual, as precise as his investments. Eleanor watched him swallow them with filtered water, his throat working methodically. At forty-seven, he was preparing for a life that might last forever, while she was already halfway out the door.

"Don't forget the cat's appointment," Roger said, already reaching for his briefcase. "Barnaby needs his shots."

Barnaby, their fat orange tabby, lay sprawled across the sofa like a judgment. Eleanor hated how the cat looked at her, as if knowing she'd spent the previous evening at a hotel bar with Marcus from Accounting. Marcus, whose hands had lingered on her waist when he whispered about the Foxconn merger, his breath warm against her ear. A fox in every sense—sleek, clever, hungry.

She'd meant for it to be drinks. Just drinks. But Marcus had ordered another round of gin and tonics, and suddenly Eleanor was twenty-five again, before mortgages and fertility treatments and Roger's spreadsheet tracking their life satisfaction scores. Before she'd become someone who needed to be supplemented.

At the vet clinic, Barnaby yowled as the needle found his scruff. The young vet tech with kind eyes and chipped nail polish said, "He's a healthy boy. Just needs love and routine."

Eleanor thought of Roger's color-coded pill organizer. She thought of Marcus's hotel room, how he'd unbuttoned her blouse with such careful reverence, as if she were something precious. How she'd pulled away at the last moment, murmuring about early meetings, leaving him half-hard against the doorframe.

"Love and routine," Eleanor repeated, driving home. The cat watched her from his carrier, those yellow unblinking eyes. Somewhere between the vet clinic and their subdivision, she realized she didn't know which was worse: the marriage that had become a series of obligations, or the affair that had become a possibility.

Roger's Volvo was in the driveway. He'd come home for lunch, which he never did. Through the kitchen window, Eleanor watched him arrange flowers on the counter—tulips, her favorite. A bottle of wine stood open, breathing. His phone sat beside the flowers, screen glowing with a message:

FoxConn merger off. Coming home early. I want to take you to dinner.

Barnaby meowed. Eleanor sat in the garage, engine running, vitamin bottles and hotel rooms and Marcus's clever hands swirling in her head. Then she turned off the ignition and picked up the cat carrier.