The Fox at Dawn

Margot wakes at 5 AM to the sound of her iPhone vibrating on the nightstand—David's name lighting up the screen, then fading to black. She doesn't reach for it. Some mornings, like this one, she pretends she's still asleep, even though her heart is already racing.

She pads to the kitchen in bare feet, the linoleum cold against her skin. The vitamin regimen sits on the counter—a colorful array of capsules that David used to joke was her expensive way of manufacturing urine. Vitamin D for the winter darkness. B-complex for the stress she couldn't shake. Magnesium for the sleep that never came.

The fox appears at the edge of the patio, its coat burning orange against the gray morning. Margot has seen it three times this week. It watches her through the glass door with intelligent eyes, unafraid, almost pitying. She wonders if it's hungry. If it, too, has lost someone who knew how to keep it fed.

Her iPhone chimes again—David this time, asking if she's coming to the gallery opening tonight. As if she could just show up and pretend she hasn't spent the last three months moving through her life like a ghost haunting her own apartment. As if she hasn't memorized the way his cologne lingers on the pillow she still can't bring herself to wash.

The fox dips its head, sensing something behind it—another fox, smaller, emerging from the bushes. They touch noses, brief and tender, before moving together into the shadows of the garden.

Margot's fingers hover over the vitamin bottles. She could take them all, choke them down, pretend she's taking care of herself. But instead she picks up her phone and types three words: I miss you.

Then she deletes them and watches the morning light stretch across the floor, waiting for the fox to return.