Terminal Departure

The iPhone lit up with his name again. Third time this morning. Sarah watched it pulse against the tray table—six years of shared life reduced to a glowing rectangle she couldn't bring herself to answer.

She swallowed her vitamin D supplement with warm airplane coffee, thinking how he'd always chide her about her deficiencies. Always monitoring, always correcting. That was David's love language: suffocating precision.

'Last call for Flight 284 to Chicago.'

She pulled the wool hat down over her ears—his hat, stolen from the closet that morning. It smelled like his ridiculous sandalwood shampoo. She should have left it. Should have left everything.

The woman in 12A peeled an orange, its citrus sharpness cutting through the stale cabin air. Sarah remembered their first anniversary picnic in Central Park, how David had actually pre-peeled an entire bag of oranges for her because she hated the mess. Back then, she'd called it thoughtful. Now she recognized it for what it was: control wrapped in romance.

'Excuse me, ma'am? You're in my seat.'

Sarah looked up. A man in his fifties, silver-haired, with kind eyes that crinkled at the corners. Something about him—this stranger displacing her from her assigned place—made her chest tighten.

'I—sorry.' She gathered her things, movements jerky. The hat slipped from her lap. A flight attendant picked it up.

'You dropped this, hon.'

Hon. The word hung there. Sarah suddenly remembered the fox.

Two weeks ago, in the backyard of the Connecticut house they'd bought together, a fox had appeared at dawn. Sarah had watched from the kitchen window, mesmerized by its wild grace, its complete indifference to the carefully curated garden David had spent months designing. The fox had taken what it wanted—a single tomato from the vine—and vanished into the woods.

She'd told David about it later. He'd sighed. 'Those things are pests, Sarah. They destroy everything.'

He hadn't even looked up from his iPad.

The iPhone lit up once more. David again. Or maybe it was her mother, or her boss, or the real estate agent she'd secretly contacted three days ago.

Sarah turned the phone face down without reading the screen.

'Buckle up, folks,' the captain's voice came over the intercom. 'Weather in Chicago is clear. We'll be there in two hours and fifteen minutes.'

Two hours and fifteen minutes to a life she hadn't chosen yet. But for the first time in six years, the choice would be hers alone.

She looked out the window as the plane began to taxi. In the distance, beyond the tarmac, she could just make out a line of trees. Somewhere out there, foxes were moving through the world, taking what they needed, answering to no one.

Sarah put on the hat. She would keep it.