The Art of Leaving

Mara stood before the bathroom mirror, scissors poised. The hair she'd grown for three years—his fingers tangling in it during Sunday morning coffee, his breath against her neck—fell in dark spirals to the tile floor. Each snip felt like a small murder, but she needed to see her own face again.

The dog, a golden retriever named Buster she'd somehow ended up with in the divorce, watched from the doorway with something uncomfortably close to judgment. He'd been David's idea too. Now he was hers, a living reminder of the life she'd almost settled for.

She stepped outside into the bruised purple twilight. The suburban street was quiet, almost menacingly so. That's when she saw it—a fox, sleek and improbable, slipping through a neighbor's fence. The animal paused, eyes catching hers with an intelligence that made her breath catch. Then it was gone, a flash of rust in a manicured world.

Something in her chest unlocked.

Mara found herself driving to the old baseball field where her brother had played Little League. The chain-link fence sagged. Weeds choked the baselines. She sat on the bleachers, their cool metal pressing against her thighs, and remembered how she'd spent every Saturday of her thirtieth year watching David play in an adult recreational league. He'd been mediocre but loved it. She'd hated every beer-soaked afternoon.

Her phone buzzed. David. Again.

"Just wanted to see if you're coming to the game Saturday," his voicemail said. "The guys keep asking about you."

Mara watched a streetlight flicker on beyond the outfield. The fox had known when to run. Maybe that was the difference between wild things and women who'd been tamed by mortgages and compromise.

She dialed her brother. "Remember how you taught me to hit?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I want to learn again. Not to be good. Just to not be afraid of the ball."

That night, Buster slept at the foot of her bed. The short hair made the pillow feel strange against her neck. Outside, somewhere in the darkness, a fox called—a sharp, wild sound. Mara turned over and smiled. Some doors, once opened, led to places worth going.