The Cable Snapped

The coaxial cable hung from the wall like a dead snake, its copper wire exposed where Marcus had ripped it from the socket during their third argument about nothing and everything.

'You treat this marriage like a baseball game,' Elena said, watching him from the doorway. 'Always keeping score. Always wondering who's winning.'

Marcus rubbed his temples. The migraine had been gnawing since Tuesday—worse today, because he'd forgotten his vitamins again, because Elena had stopped reminding him, because reminding had become one more thing they'd both agreed was too intimate for strangers living in the same house.

'That's not fair,' he said.

'Fair?' She laughed, brittle and sharp. 'You want to talk about fair? You canceled dinner with Sarah last week. She's been your friend for twenty years, Marcus. She flew across the country to see us, and you blew her off for a meeting that could've been an email.'

'Sarah understands. She knows how things are.'

'Does she?' Elena stepped closer. 'Or has she just stopped expecting anything different?'

The silence stretched between them, thick with years of small compromises that had accumulated like dust in corners they'd both stopped cleaning. Marcus thought about the bottle of multivitamins in his drawer, unopened since March. He thought about Sarah's disappointed smile when she'd left early, understanding in that way friends do when they love you enough to let you disappoint them.

'I miss you,' he said.

'I'm right here.'

'No. You're not.'

Elena's expression softened, just slightly. 'Then fix the cable.'

'What?'

'The cable. You broke it.' She gestured toward the wall. 'Fix it, and then we'll figure out the rest.'

Marcus stared at the dangling wire, then at his wife—really looked at her, for the first time in weeks. She was tired. They both were.

He picked up the cable. The connector was bent, but maybe fixable. 'Okay,' he said. 'I'll start here.'