The Cat at the Window

The vitamin bottle sat on the counter where Marcus had left it that morning—his daily ritual, precise and unfailing. I'd never remembered to take mine. That was the kind of wife I was: forgetful, chaotic, the one who left hats on hooks and cats unfed.

Now the black cat sat on the windowsill, watching me with patient yellow eyes. I'd named him Shadow when he first appeared three months ago, a stray who'd decided our fire escape was his territory. Marcus had pretended not to notice the cat food cans accumulating in the recycling bin.

"You saw it coming, didn't you?" I said aloud. The cat blinked slowly, inscrutable as ever.

The orange on the counter had already started to soften, its dimpled skin turning toward something overripe and sad. I'd bought it yesterday, planning to make breakfast, planning to be the kind of woman who peeled oranges for her husband before work. Instead I'd slept through the alarm, again.

My palm pressed against the cool glass of the window, leaving a faint imprint. The lines of my hand looked alien in the reflection—transitory geography, uncertain terrain. I wondered what Marcus would say if he could see me now. He'd always hated dramatics, hated what he called my "performative despair."

"Performative," he'd say, "like everything else you do."

He was right about some things. The hat I'd bought last week hung on the coat rack, its wide brim untouched. It was a prop for a version of myself I kept promising to become: the woman who wore hats to Sunday brunch, who remembered her vitamins, who kept a house clean enough for guests. A woman who didn't let her marriage rot slowly from the inside.

The cat stretched, exposing its pale belly to the morning sun. I should feed him. I should peel the orange. I should take the damn vitamin. Instead I stood there, palm still pressed to glass, watching the city wake up below while everything I'd built continued its quiet collapse.

"You're better at this than I am," I told the cat. He began to wash his face, methodical and calm, as if he'd expected nothing more from me all along.