The Green Detritus of Us

Elena stood at the kitchen counter, her hands submerged in the cold water as she rinsed the spinach for the third time. The leaves clung to her fingers like wet money, dark and forgiving and entirely too much effort for a Tuesday dinner. She could hear Michael in the bathroom, the rattle of his daily vitamin regiment—those plastic, promising capsules he swallowed like religious sacrament. Vitamin D for his mood, B-complex for energy, omega-3 for his heart. As if any of it could repair what was actually broken between them.

The spinach sizzled when it hit the hot pan, shrinking dramatically, surrendering its structure to the heat. She watched it wilt and thought about how love did that too—how it started out voluminous and impossible, then reduced itself down to something concentrated, something that barely filled the bottom of the pan. Michael had told her last night that he didn't know if he loved her anymore. He'd said it while they were brushing teeth, their reflections ghostly in the mirror, a stray hair from his thinning crown catching the light. He was thirty-seven and losing his hair and apparently his marriage, though he seemed more upset about the former.

She plated the spinach alongside the salmon she'd cooked too long. When Michael emerged from the bathroom, he sat at the table without meeting her eyes, his fork pushing the greens around his plate like he was looking for something he'd lost.

"You need to eat your vegetables," she heard herself say, the wifely reflex automatic and grotesque.

Michael looked up, and for a terrible second she thought he might cry. Instead he smiled, thin and tired, and swallowed his vitamins without water.

"I know," he said. "I'm trying."