The Fox in the Mirror

Julianne smoothed the brim of her hat, the felt rough against her fingertips. It was the one good thing about winter funerals—you could wear a hat without apology. Hers was charcoal, wide-brimmed, the kind that suggested mourning even when you weren't sure what you were mourning anymore.

She'd eaten lunch alone at the diner before the service. Spinach and feta omelet, the spinach weeping into the eggs like it knew something she didn't. A green shard still lodged between her molars; she could feel it with her tongue, a small abscess of embarrassment in a day already full of them.

"You're not wearing that, are you?" Richard had asked that morning, not looking up from his phone. He'd called her his little fox once, years ago, when he still found her cunning charming instead of threatening.

The service was interminable. Richard stood at the front of the church, composed in his black suit, delivering the eulogy for his mother with the practiced ease of a man who'd rehearsed his emotions. Juliananne sat three rows back, alone, watching the back of his neck, remembering how it used to taste under her lips.

At the reception, she caught her reflection in a mirror—hat shadowing her eyes, something feral in her gaze. A fox, yes. But the kind that scavenged.

Richard found her by the buffet, loading a plate with spinach dip she wouldn't eat. "You look tired," he said, and there it was: the familiar edge of judgment disguised as concern.

"I'm fine," she said, and realized she meant it.

The spinach between her teeth had worked loose. She swallowed it without thinking, tasted nothing, and finally understood: some things, once rotten, are best swallowed whole.

"Richard," she said, "I'm not going home with you."

He laughed, startled. "What?"

"The hat," she said, touching the brim. "I'm wearing it."

Outside, the winter air bit at her cheeks. She took off the hat and let her hair loose, watching her breath cloud against the sky, and for the first time in years, she recognized the woman in the mirror.