The Fruit of Waiting

Elena sat on her balcony at 2 AM, nursing a glass of cheap merlot and watching the neighborhood stray cat navigate the chain-link fence below. The cat moved with that particular arrogance of street animals who know they're surviving on borrowed time, and she felt a kinship with it.

Forty-seven years old, freshly divorced, and her boss had called her into his office that afternoon to deliver the corporate euphemism for "we're going in a different direction." Different directions. What a polite way to say they'd hired someone twenty-five years old for half her salary.

She took a bite of the papaya she'd cut up earlier, letting the sweet muskiness fill her mouth. It was almost overripe now, its flesh softening into something bordering on decay, but she ate it anyway. There was something satisfying about consuming something on its way out.

The papaya had been Marco's favorite. Her ex-husband. The man who'd left her for a twenty-three-year-old Pilates instructor named — of all things — Tiffany. Elena had found the text messages on a Tuesday night, the same night she'd bought this papaya, planning to make them both breakfast. Instead, she'd made herself a pitcher of margaritas and called her sister at three in the morning.

"You're better off," her sister had said. "Marco was always running from something. Remember that bull at his brother's farm? The one that chased him into the pond?"

She did remember. Marco had been showing off, trying to prove something to his older brother, and the bull — a massive creature named Brutus, strangely gentle until provoked — had simply decided it had enough of Marco's posturing. Elena had watched from the porch, torn between terror and a certain admiration for the animal's directness.

The cat below paused, looked up at her through the darkness, and meowed. A demanding sound. Elena set down her wine, went to the kitchen, and returned with a saucer of milk.

"Here," she whispered, placing it on the edge of the balcony. "We're both hungry. We're both waiting."

The papaya was gone. The wine was nearly gone. And for the first time in months, Elena didn't feel entirely hollow. She felt like something new was beginning, something she couldn't name yet but could almost taste — something as sweet and strange as the fruit on her tongue.