Supplements and Sacrifices

Elena stared at the plastic bottle on her desk—menopause vitamins, her sister called them, though she was only thirty-eight. The office fluorescents caught in her hair, still dark except for that one strand of silver she'd found last week, plucking it like a betrayal.

Her iPhone lit up. Another text from Marcus: 'Can we talk?'

She swiped it away. Three years of marriage, eighteen months of couples counseling, and still he wanted to talk. Always the same conversation—her career, his dreams, whose sacrifices mattered more. He'd wanted her to move to Chicago for his promotion. She'd declined, partner track be damned, and now they were living in the same apartment like strangers who shared a bed and a Netflix subscription.

Downstairs, the city hummed. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the faint crack of a baseball from the park where she used to watch her father play weekend leagues with the other immigrant dads, their heavy accents blending with shouts of 'Batter up!' and childish laughter. Her father had built an empire from nothing—stacking his ambitions like a pyramid, each level a new business venture, another property, more money for the children who would never want for anything.

Elena had become the apex of that pyramid. The one who made it. Corporate law partner by thirty-five. But standing in her corner office with its view of the skyline, she wondered if her father had ever felt this hollow.

She opened the vitamin bottle and swallowed one dry.

Her phone buzzed again. Not Marcus this time—her mother, sending yet another photo of eligible sons of friends. 'This one's a doctor,' the caption read. 'Very handsome.'

Elena typed back: 'I'm still married.'

'Still?' came the reply. 'Then make it work or end it, mi hija. This halfway life—it's killing you.'

The truth hit her like a physical blow. She'd been living in the space between decisions, safe from neither love nor solitude, protecting herself from everything meaningful.

She found Marcus in the kitchen of their darkened apartment, his baseball glove on the counter—a relic from college intramurals he couldn't bear to throw away.

'Chicago?' she asked.

He looked up, hope and exhaustion warring in his eyes. 'What about it?'

'I'll need six months to transfer. Maybe less if I push.' She paused. 'But only if you promise to stop asking me to choose. You chose your career. I chose mine. Now we choose us.'

Marcus crossed the room and pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. The vitamin bottle sat forgotten in her purse. Some things couldn't be fixed with supplements.