The Last Serve

The cat watched from the windowsill as Mateo packed his padel racquet into the car. Luna had been crying—again—and the way she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, refusing to let him see her face, was something he'd witnessed too many times in six years of marriage. He should have stayed. He should have asked what was wrong, really asked, instead of muttering something about Thursday night league and escaping through the garage door.

The padel court was humid, the scent of sweat and sunscreen heavy in the air. His partner, Carlos, was new to the club—a recently divorced architect who talked too much between points. "Women," Carlos said, shaking his head after a fault. "They want everything, then they want something else. You can't win."

Mateo's phone buzzed on the bench. A notification from their home security system: motion detected in the living room. Then another: front door opened. Luna never left the house after nine.

He played the final set on autopilot, his racquet finding the sweet spot with muscle memory alone. Game, set, match. The victory felt hollow. As he shook hands across the net, his phone lit up again. A text: "We need to talk. Don't come home yet."

The drive took twenty minutes, though it felt like hours. Their street was quiet, illuminated only by streetlamps. Luna sat on the front porch steps, the cat curled beside her, both of them silhouetted against the yellow light spilling from the hallway. Something about the stillness of the image—his wife and their companion animal waiting like sentinels—made his chest tighten.

"I'm done, Mateo," she said before he could speak. Her voice wasn't angry. It was worse than angry; it was calm. "I'm not angry anymore. I'm just done."

"Is this about the league? I can stop playing."

"It's not the padel." She stood up, the cat winding between her legs. "It's that you'd rather be anywhere but here. You've been leaving me in pieces for years. Tonight, I finally realized: I'm the only one holding us together. And I'm tired."

Inside, she'd already packed. Her suitcases stood like sentinels in the hallway. On the television, a cable news channel played silently—she must have left it on for background noise, something she always did when she was anxious. The cable box blinked its lonely blue light.

"The apartment is leased for three months," she said. "We can figure out the rest later."

"Luna, please—"

"Don't." She kissed his cheek, a ghost of warmth. "You'll be okay. The cat will stay with me. She deserves better than being left alone with someone who's never really there."

The door clicked shut behind her. Mateo stood in the living room surrounded by the accumulated debris of a marriage: furniture they'd chosen together, photos on walls they'd painted side by side, the cable running along the baseboard that he'd promised to secure three years ago and never had. Small things. Things that added up to everything.

He sank onto the sofa, the springs creaking in the silence. On the floor beside the couch, he found a small piece of paper—Luna's handwriting, the ink slightly smudged where a tear must have fallen. It was a list of pros and cons, headed in her neat, careful script. On the left, reasons to stay: six years of history, shared dreams, the way he laughed at her terrible cooking, the cat purring between them on Sunday mornings. On the right, reasons to go: longer now, a column that filled the page, ending with a single line at the bottom: Because I deserve to be chosen first.

Mateo's fingers traced the words he'd never spoken, choices he'd never made. Outside, a car engine started and faded into distance. Somewhere beyond the walls, his wife was driving away, and he was still standing in the wreckage of everything he hadn't realized he was losing until it was already gone.