Supplements

Margaret arranged the vitamin bottles on the kitchen counter—D, B12, omega-3—her morning pharmacy of tiny promises. Another day another attempt to delay the inevitable decay. At forty-seven, she'd learned that maintenance was everything. Maintain the house. Maintain the marriage. Maintain the illusion that neither was slowly crumbling.

David came in, tracksuit already stained with coffee. He didn't look at her. He looked through her, the way he'd been doing since the miscarriage two years ago. Since then, they'd become roommates who occasionally touched in the dark, ships passing in a hallway too small for both of them.

"The cat's gone again," he said, opening the refrigerator. "Third time this week."

Margaret's stomach tightened. The cat—Barnaby—was her anchor. Her only living thing that still needed her unconditionally. "He always comes back."

"Not like the dog did." David's voice was flat. "Remember how Duke just walked off when you were in the hospital? Just packed his bags and moved in with the neighbors. Some animals know when to cut their losses."

The comparison hung there, jagged and deliberate. Margaret swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat. Duke had been David's dog originally. Another thing David had abandoned.

"I'm going out," she said, grabbing her coat. "Need more vitamin C."

"Margaret." He finally looked at her. "We can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Pretending we're not both waiting for the other to leave first."

She stood in the doorway, her hand on the frame. Outside, something moved in the bushes. Barnaby, perhaps. Or maybe it was just the wind, pushing through the garden that neither of them had bothered to tend since they'd stopped tending each other.

"I'm not pretending anything," she said, and realized it was true. She wasn't pretending. She was just staying, day after day, arranging vitamins on the counter, waiting for something to change. Waiting for herself to change.

"No," David said, turning back to his coffee. "You're not. That's the problem."

Margaret walked out into the crisp morning air. She didn't go to the pharmacy. She sat on the front steps and waited, like she did every morning now, for the cat to come home. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he didn't. Eventually, she'd have to decide whether she was waiting for Barnaby, or just waiting.