The Last Cable

She stood in the kitchen, barefoot on cold linoleum, wilting spinach in the pan. The steam rose around her face like a curtain she could hide behind. Outside, November pressed against the windows.

"You're going to bear this cross forever, aren't you?" Mark said from the doorway. He meant her silence. He meant the way she'd stopped trying to reach him.

She salted the spinach. "Some crosses are heavier than others."

They were divorcing in the morning. Six years of marriage reduced to boxes and legal documents. The cable company had been called—service disconnected at midnight. The apartment would go dark and quiet, the way it had been between them for months.

Mark stepped closer. She could smell the whiskey on his breath, the same way she could smell the spinach burning slightly in the pan. They were all burning things—their youth, their patience, whatever they'd once promised each other.

"I never stopped loving you," he said, and the terrible part was that she believed him. He could love her and still need to leave. Love wasn't enough to bear the weight of two people who'd grown into strangers.

"I know," she said, turning off the burner. "That's the problem."

At 11:47 PM, the cable went out. The TV flickered and died, taking with it the noise they'd used to fill their evenings. They stood together in the sudden quiet, not touching, as the apartment seemed to expand around them. All that space where their life used to be.

"Eat," she said, sliding a plate of spinach toward him.

He took a bite. "It's salty."

"It's supposed to be."

He nodded. They were both crying, just a little, in the way adults do when they know some endings are actually beginnings disguised as loss. The spinach was saltier than necessary, but that was okay. Some things needed to be tasted thoroughly before they were gone.