The Cat Who Knew

Maggie stood on the balcony of the beach house they'd rented for what was supposed to be their anniversary, watching the palm tree bend in the wind. Ten years of marriage, and David had left her for a woman half her age—a woman without laugh lines, without the gray already threading through her hair like stubborn silver.

The cat, a fat tabby named Barnaby who'd come with the rental, wound around her ankles, meowing insistently. He knew. Animals always knew when something was wrong. She'd always wanted a cat; David had been allergic—or so he'd said. Now she wondered if he'd been allergic to everything domestic, everything that smelled like commitment.

Inside, a pot of spinach was wilting on the stove, forgotten. She'd been making dinner when he'd told her, standing in the kitchen doorway with his suitcase already packed. "I'm not happy, Mags. Haven't been for years." The spinach had seemed so important then, so normal. Now it was just another thing she'd have to clean up.

She thought about running—not literally, though she could. She'd run every morning until her knees had started to ache two years ago. Running away from everything. The beach house was prepaid for the week. She could stay here, drink wine on the balcony, let Barnaby sleep on her chest while she stared at the ocean.

The phone buzzed. Her sister. "How's paradise?"

"David left me," Maggie said, and the words still felt foreign, like stones in her mouth.

"I'm coming over."

"No. Don't."

"Maggie—"

"I mean it. I need to figure out what happens next without an audience."

She hung up and turned off the stove. The spinach was beyond saving now, reduced to a dark green mass. Like her marriage. Like the past decade of her life, poured into something that had withered under too much heat.

Barnaby rubbed his head against her palm, and she picked him up, burying her face in his fur. Somewhere in this mess was a new beginning. She'd figure it out—one day at a time, one sunrise at a time, starting tomorrow.