The Fox at the Sink

Elena stood at the kitchen sink, the dishwater cooling around her hands. In the window's reflection, she saw a fox—sleek orange coat bright against the dusk—padding through her backyard. It moved with the same careless grace that David had possessed when they first met, before everything hardened.

Her iPhone lit up on the counter. Another notification from him. She didn't pick it up.

Earlier, at what was supposed to be a simple dinner to discuss logistics, she'd gotten spinach stuck in her teeth. David hadn't told her. He'd just watched her talk for forty minutes, picking at his salmon while she negotiated custody arrangements with green flecks in her smile. Later, in the restaurant bathroom, she'd wanted to scream. Instead she'd cried, ruining her makeup, letting the water run while she stared at herself in the mirror.

"Three strikes," he'd said when she returned, and she'd thought he was making a baseball reference. But he was talking about the affair. Three different women in three months, like he'd been trying to prove something.

The fox paused outside the window, its eyes meeting hers. There was something pitiless in its gaze, something that recognized hunger when it saw it.

She turned off the faucet. The house felt enormous without him, though she'd wanted this emptiness for years. The iPhone chimed again—a text this time. "Can we talk?"

Elena remembered how David used to call her his clever fox, back when that meant something sexy instead of calculating. She remembered the baseball games they attended before the marriage grew stale, how he'd explain each play like she'd never watched sports before. She remembered making him spinach salads because his doctor had warned about his cholesterol, and how he'd eaten them without complaint, swearing he loved the taste.

That was the thing about marriage—all the small deaths that accumulated until you couldn't remember which one had killed you.

Outside, the fox melted into the shadows. Elena's phone screen darkened again. She dried her hands on a dishtowel, the fabric rough against her skin, and for the first time in months, she didn't feel like waiting for something to happen. She went to turn on the lights.