The Charging Cable

Maya sat on the edge of the hotel bed, the white lightning cable coiled like a sleeping snake beside her. Her iPhone screen glowed with a message that had arrived at 2:47 AM — not from the conference she was supposed to be attending in Chicago, but from Richard's phone.

"You still up?"

Richard was back in Seattle, supposedly finishing the nursery renovation. Three months pregnant, Maya had insisted on taking this consulting gig alone, needing to feel capable before her life dissolved into diaper changes and sleep deprivation.

She'd asked him to FaceTime that morning. He'd said the WiFi was down. He'd said a lot of things lately.

Her thumb hovered over the unfamiliar number that had texted. Then she opened the photo gallery, scrolling past ultrasounds and paint swatches until she found it: the screenshot Richard had sent her yesterday, supposedly showing the nursery progress. But there, reflected in the newly installed mirror, was unmistakable evidence — a red charging cable that didn't belong to them. Maya's was still here, in her hand.

She thought about the corrida she'd watched in Spain years ago, how the bull always charged at the red cape, blind with fury and instinct. She'd never understood the violence of it until now.

The phone buzzed again. "My bad, wrong number."

Maya's thumb moved to the block button. Instead, she opened her banking app and transferred half their savings to an account he didn't know about. Then she booked a flight to Cabo for next week, not Chicago. The conference could wait. The marriage probably couldn't.

She plugged her iPhone into the wall and watched the battery icon illuminate. Some connections, she decided, weren't worth keeping charged.