The Economics of Falling Apart

David lined up the supplements on the granite countertop—Vitamin D for bones, B-complex for stress, a generic multivitamin for everything he couldn't articulate about aging. Forty-seven and already dissolving.

Sarah stood at the stove, scraping charred skin from a papaya with surgical precision. Her back to him, spine curved like a question mark he'd forgotten how to answer.

"Bull market's still climbing," she said, not turning around. "Your dad called."

David's stomach tightened. His father, the man who'd measured success in bear versus bull, now measured days between memory lapses. "What did he want?"

"To know if you're coming Sunday. He's bought baseball tickets. Said something about the Twins, how you used to go when you were—" She stopped, knife hovering over bright orange flesh. "He remembers what you can't."

The papaya seeds scattered like dark thoughts across the cutting board. David remembered those games: seventh inning stretches, his father's rough hand on his shoulder, the certainty that父子关系 would always fit together like puzzle pieces. Now his father remembered only fragments.

"I can't," David said. "Earnings call Monday."

"Always the market." Sarah turned, and there it was: the particular look that meant I'm measuring you against what we lost. "You haven't seen him in six weeks."

A golden retriever mix padded into the kitchen, nails clicking on hardwood, nudging David's calf with wet desperation. They'd gotten the dog three years ago, something to nurture when IVF failed. Now Barnaby was the only living thing that still needed them.

David rubbed the dog's ears, feeling the papaya's sickly sweetness overtake the room. "He doesn't know me anymore, Sarah. Last time, he asked what college I went to."

"He knew you long enough to teach you how to catch, how to throw, how to—" Her voice cracked. "You're measuring him by what he's lost. That's the bull market talking. Everything up, everything down. Some things don't trade." She slid a plate of papaya toward him. "Your mother said he eats fruit now. Remembers flavors better than names."

David looked at the papaya—soft, vulnerable, everything he refused to be. "Sunday," he said, the word foreign in his mouth. "I'll go Sunday." Outside, the dog barked at nothing, or everything, and the morning arranged itself around one small, unprofitable decision.