The Last Harvest

Maya stood in the kitchen she'd spent twelve years making hers, watching the spinach leaves wilt in the colander like something that had given up. David's voice drifted from the living room, sharp and practiced—the same tone he used during dinner parties when he wanted everyone to know he was the smartest person in the room. He was on a conference call, something about quarterly projections or synergy or whatever corporate bullshit had replaced their marriage.

"Maya, you can't just—" He appeared in the doorway, phone still pressed to his ear, then lowered it slowly. "What are you doing?"

"Packing, David. What does it look like?"

The orange on the counter had sat there for three days, its skin dimpling, growing soft in spots. She'd bought it because he'd mentioned wanting fresh juice. That was before she found the texts, before the discovery that his "business trips" to Chicago had included someone named Chloe.

"We said we'd talk about this," he said, and his voice cracked, just a little. The sound of it—that small fissure in his composure—almost made her stay. Almost.

"There's nothing left to talk about. But here." She pointed to the baseball card collection on the top shelf of the pantry, the boxes they'd spent weekends organizing, his childhood treasure he'd entrusted to her care. "Take those. I don't want them."

His eyes widened. Those cards were worth more than her car. "You're giving me everything?"

"Not everything." Maya gestured to the spinach, now soggy and blackening at the edges. "You can have your bachelorhood back. You can have your team-building retreats and your "networking drinks" and your carefully curated lies." She zipped her duffel bag. "I'm taking the dog."

"Maya, please—"

"Did you ever love me?" The question escaped before she could stop it, hanging in the air like something fragile.

David opened his mouth, closed it. The silence stretched, thick and terrible. Outside, someone honked their horn. Somewhere in the distance, children were playing baseball, the crack of a bat carrying through the open window.

"That's what I thought," Maya said. She picked up her bag and walked past him toward the door, and the worst part was how carefully he stepped aside to let her through. Not grabbing her arm, not shouting, not doing anything dramatic. Just watching her go, like she was a customer leaving his store, like he couldn't wait to close up and count the drawer.

The orange sat on the counter between them, slowly rotting in the afternoon light.