The Fruit of Broken Things

The farmer's market crowd pressed around them, Saturday morning sunlight filtering through the canopy. Elena stood before the fruit stand, considering papayas—green and alien-looking, like things not yet ready to be loved.

"You're taking forever," Marcus said, already two steps away. His eyes kept darting toward his phone, its screen a glowing orange rectangle in his palm. Somewhere else was more interesting than here. Somewhere else always was.

"I'm thinking about what to make for your mother's birthday dinner," she said, though it wasn't true. She'd stopped planning days ago. She'd stopped doing a lot of things.

His hat—stupid, predictable, utterly Marcus—shadowed eyes that refused to meet hers. That hat had been charming once. Six years ago, watching him adjust it with that self-conscious little tilt had made her stomach drop. Now it was just another thing between them.

A woman walked past with an ancient golden retriever, its muzzle white, its pace measured and sad. The dog paused at Elena's feet, looked up with clouded eyes, as if recognizing something. She knelt, buried her fingers in coarse fur, smelled wet earth and unconditional something.

"We have to go," Marcus said. "She's expecting us by noon."

"What if I'm not ready?" The question hung there, small and terrible.

The dog's owner tugged gently. "Come on, Buster." The animal followed, its tail giving one slow, hopeful sweep before it turned away.

Elena stood up. Her knees made a sound they shouldn't have made. She was thirty-two, feeling older than the dog, older than this marriage that had started with laughter and hotel rooms and ended with silences and cancelled trips and nights facing opposite directions in bed.

"For God's sake, Elena. Just pick something."

She reached past the papayas, picked up an orange. Its skin felt like everything she couldn't say: rough, bright, hiding something complicated inside.

"I'm not hungry," she said. "I'm not going."

Marcus's phone chimed. He looked at it, then at her, then away. The hat failed to hide the relief beneath his irritation.

"Fine. I'll tell her you're sick."

"Tell her whatever you want."

He walked away through the crowd. People flowed around him like water. The market continued. Papayas sat untouched in their crate. The orange burned in her hand like something holy, something entirely her own.