The Fruit of Waiting
The papaya sat on the kitchen counter, its skin mottled with yellow and green like a bruise that wouldn't heal. Sarah had bought it three days ago, back when she still believed Richard might come home. Now it was overripe, its flesh too soft, much like the excuses he'd given when he packed his bags.
She sliced into it anyway. The knife slipped through with alarming ease, revealing vibrant orange flesh inside. It reminded her of the sunset they'd watched from the hospital parking lot the night his mother died—the same strange, aggressive orange that seemed to demand attention, unwilling to fade quietly into night.
"You're wearing the hat again," her sister had said during their phone call that morning. "You know you only wear that baseball cap when you're spiraling."
Sarah hadn't bothered to correct her. It wasn't spiraling; it was organizing. The hat—Richard's old Mets cap, sweat-stained and fraying at the brim—sat on her head like a crown of thorns. She wore it because it still smelled like him: tobacco and rain and that particular scent of someone who's been somewhere you haven't.
The papaya's seeds spilled into the sink, black and slick, scattering like regrets. She ate a piece, standing over the counter in her underwear and his hat. It was sweet, cloyingly so, the kind of sweetness that makes your teeth ache. Like the way he used to look at her before everything became complicated.
Outside, someone's car alarm pierced the afternoon stillness. A dog barked. The world continued its indifferent rotation.
Sarah swallowed another bite of papaya, wiped juice from her chin with the back of her hand. The hat slipped forward over her eyes. She didn't push it back up.
Tomorrow she would buy groceries. Tomorrow she would return her sister's call. Tomorrow she would take off the hat.
But tonight, the papaya was sweet enough, and the orange light through the kitchen window was forgiving, and for a moment, she could almost pretend she wasn't alone in a house that had become too large for one person.