The Dinner Party

Sarah pushed the spinach around her plate with her fork, the restaurant's ambient noise washing over her like static. Across the table, David's iPhone lit up again — third time in twenty minutes. He didn't even have the courtesy to look guilty anymore.

"She's just a friend," he'd said last night, while she stood in their bedroom holding his old baseball jersey like it might still contain some version of him she recognized.

The truth was, she didn't care about the other woman. She cared about the erosion — the slow, relentless way he'd stopped looking at her like she was the only person in the room. Like she was the prize he'd won, the bull he'd conquered, then left to graze in the backyard while he found new challenges.

"Are you going to get that?" she asked now, and he finally glanced up, annoyed.

"It's work. You know how the merger's been."

She didn't know. She used to. Now she knew more about the texture of restaurant spinach than she did about his daily life. They'd become roommates who shared a bed and a mortgage, two bears hibernating in the same cave for warmth rather than love.

"David," she said softly, setting down her fork. "Remember when we came here for our anniversary? You said you'd never become your father."

His phone buzzed again. He hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen, something like fear flickering behind his eyes.

"What are you saying?"

She reached across the table, not for his hand, but for his phone. He let her take it. She turned it face down on the white tablecloth.

"I'm saying," she said, "that you already did."