The Current Between Us

The spinach lay limp on David's plate, a wilted testament to how long we'd been sitting at this dinner table. Outside, lightning flickered across the sky like a strobe light exposing everything we'd been pretending not to see for six months.

"You're leaving," I said. It wasn't a question.

David pushed his food around with his fork. "I haven't packed yet."

"But you will."

Barnaby, our Golden Retriever, rested his head on David's knee, whining softly. The dog had known before I did—had been sleeping in the guest room for weeks, as if already rehearsing the new arrangement.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the wedding photo on the sideboard. We looked so certain of ourselves then, so convinced that love was something you caught once and held forever. Now I wondered if we'd ever really seen each other, or if we'd just been convenient mirrors for each other's projected desires.

"It's not about not loving you," David said, finally meeting my eyes. "It's about who I become when I'm here. I've been shrinking, Elena. Slowly, like the spinach."

The thunder that followed shook the windows. I felt something crack inside me—not cleanly, but spiderweb style, the kind of structural damage that doesn't show immediately but makes everything that comes after precarious.

"And who are you when you're not here?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.

David's hand moved to Barnaby's head, scratching behind the ears the way the dog liked. "Someone who remembers he wanted to be a painter. Someone who doesn't apologize for being too much."

The dog thumped his tail against the table leg, this steady, rhythmic sound that seemed to say: this is just what happens. People grow. Or they don't. Either way, the tail keeps wagging.

I stood up and began clearing the plates. The spinach went into the compost, another thing that had started with promise and ended up rotting in the back of the refrigerator.

"Go then," I said. "But take Barnaby. He's already chosen you."

David stood too, and in the next flash of lightning, I saw tears on both our faces—not because we were breaking, but because we were finally, terrifyingly, becoming whole.