Supplements for the Soul

Margaret stood in the supplement aisle, staring at the rows of promises in plastic bottles. Vitamin D for bones she hadn't broken yet. Vitamin C for immune systems that would eventually fail. At forty-seven, she'd become a collector of preventive measures, as if swallowing enough pills could stave off the inevitable decay that had taken her mother at this same age.

Her phone buzzed. David. Again.

She'd moved out three months ago, but he still texted daily with updates on things that used to be theirs. The cat missed you. The fern died. I made that spinach salad you love, and it tastes like nothing without you here to complain about it.

Margaret's therapist said this was his way of maintaining control. Margaret said it was because he was lonely. Her therapist asked what the difference was.

At home, her own cat—a rescue named Benediction who chose her over David, to everyone's surprise—rubbed against her ankles. Margaret had chosen Benediction because the cat had seemed wise, as if she understood the particular loneliness of being middle-aged and starting over. Benediction had belonged to an elderly neighbor who'd died alone, and the cat seemed to carry that knowledge in her amber eyes.

Margaret opened the refrigerator. There was spinach, wilting in the crisper drawer, and a container of Greek yogurt approaching its expiration date. This was what independence looked like: healthy choices that no one witnessed, meals for one that still somehow produced too many leftovers.

She dropped a vitamin pill on the floor. Benediction batted it under the refrigerator.

"You're probably right," Margaret said, crouching to retrieve it. "What's the point?"

Her phone lit up again. A photo of David's hand, a bandage on his ring finger where he'd cut himself cooking.

Forgot to take my vitamin today. Keep forgetting everything without you.

Margaret sat on her kitchen floor, the cat pressing into her side. She'd thought leaving would feel like freedom. Instead, it felt like this: spinach that went bad before she could finish it, vitamins she forgot to take, a marriage that had ended not with explosion but with the quiet recognition that they'd become strangers who shared a bed.

Benediction purred, a rumble against Margaret's ribs.

"You and me," Margaret whispered. "We're the ones who got out."

The vitamin remained under the refrigerator. Some things, she decided, were better left lost.