The Art of Leaving

The baseball game droned on from the television—bottom of the ninth, some team Elias cared about losing again. He barely noticed. The fox had been at the edge of the property for three days now, a rust-colored sentinel watching through the sliding glass door, as if waiting for something to break.

"You're doing that thing," Sarah said, pushing spinach around her plate with surgical precision. "Where you're here but not here."

"I'm right here."

"No. You're with the fox."

It was unnerving how she saw through him. Seven years of marriage would do that—the slow accumulation of secrets and tells, like sediment settling in a glass of water. He remembered their honeymoon in Maine, waking at dawn to watch wild foxes hunt along the shoreline. That morning, he'd told her he wanted to die with her. Now he couldn't remember if he'd meant it.

"The spinach is wilted," he said.

"It's supposed to be wilted. That's how the recipe works."

The recipe. Her mother's recipe, served at every dinner party, every holiday, every Tuesday night for seven years. Spinach that had seen better days, much like them.

Elias stood to refill his water glass. The refrigerator hummed—an ancient, dying sound they'd been meaning to address since the Bush administration. He watched the water fill the glass, crystalline and indifferent. Below the sink, the supply line had been leaking for months. They'd placed a bowl beneath it rather than call a plumber. That bowl was now half-full of something murky and gray.

"You still haven't fixed it," she said, following his gaze.

"I will."

"You won't."

They both knew she was right. Outside, the fox lifted its head and screamed—a terrible, human sound. Sarah dropped her fork. It clattered against the plate, echoing in the silence like a gunshot.

"What if it's rabid?" she whispered.

"What if we are?"

The baseball crowd erupted from the television. Someone had won. Elias turned off the set. In the darkened window, their reflections stared back—two people who'd become strangers in the same house, watching each other wait for something to break.

"I'm staying at my sister's," she said.

"When?"

"Now."

The fox slipped away into the darkness as she stood, leaving only the faint footprints in the snow, and the spinach growing cold on both their plates.