The Last Clean Plate

Margot stood in the checkout line at Whole Foods, clutching a bottle of prenatal vitamins she'd never use. Her iphone buzzed in her pocket—another text from David asking if she'd picked up the wine. She hadn't. She'd forgotten the wine entirely, distracted by the way her reflection in the pharmacy mirror had stopped looking like a stranger.

"You okay?" The cashier asked, scanning the vitamin bottle. Margot realized she'd been staring at it for too long.

"Fine," she said, though she wasn't. At forty-two, with two miscarriages behind her and a husband who'd slowly become a roommate, she was many things, but fine wasn't one of them.

She bought the spinach too—a massive bag of organic baby leaves that David wouldn't eat. He called it rabbit food. He ate steak and potatoes and still fit into his wedding tuxedo, while Margot counted calories and wondered when her body had become a traitor.

Barnaby, their golden retriever, met her at the door. He was old now, his muzzle gray, but his tail still thumped against the doorframe with the same enthusiasm from seven years ago when they'd brought him home, drunk on new love and the certainty that they'd build a family around this creature.

David was in the study, working. He didn't look up when she entered.

"I got the spinach," she said, just to say something.

"Great." His voice was flat. "Did you remember the wine?"

The silence stretched between them like something physical. Margot set the bag on the counter. She could tell him now—about the job offer in Seattle, about how she'd been secretly interviewing for months, about how she wanted a divorce but didn't know how to say it without breaking everything.

Instead she put the spinach in the refrigerator, next to the wine he'd bought yesterday. The vitamins went in the bathroom cabinet, behind the mirror, next to the pregnancy test from three months ago that she'd never thrown away.

Her phone lit up again. Not David this time—her mother, asking if they were coming for Sunday dinner. Margot typed "yes" automatically, then deleted it.

Barnaby nudged her hand with his wet nose. She knelt on the kitchen floor and buried her face in his warm fur, breathing in the smell of earth and loyalty, and let herself cry for the first time in months.