The Last Straw

The iPhone lit up the bedroom like a pulse, its blue glow cutting through the darkness at 3 AM. Sarah lay beside Mark, watching his thumb scroll through emails, his face illuminated by that cold, synthetic light. The cat—a rescue named Buster who'd seen them through three apartments and two layoffs—curled at the foot of the bed, indifferent to their unraveling.

"You're doing it again," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Mark didn't look up. "Just one more thing for work. The Tokyo deal."

"Bullshit." The word felt sharp in her mouth, like broken glass. "The Tokyo deal closed yesterday. I heard you on the call."

He finally turned to her, his eyes searching her face in the dim light. "I'm building something here, Sarah. This is the make-or-break year."

"Last year was the make-or-break year," she said. "The year before that, too. Remember what you told me when we adopted Buster? That you'd never be the guy who missed everything for work?"

The cat lifted his head, yellow eyes reflecting the iPhone's glow, then settled back into sleep.

"That was different," Mark said, but his voice lacked conviction.

Sarah reached for the phone, her fingers grazing his wrist. "Remember New Mexico? That roadside motel where we got stranded for two days? No reception, no work, just us and that terrible bull skull mounted in the lobby? You said it was the best week of your life. That you'd never felt so present."

"That was five years ago, Sarah. We were twenty-four."

"And now we're almost thirty, and I haven't felt present with you in months. I look at you sometimes and wonder: if I disappeared, would you notice before your battery died?"

Mark set down the iPhone. The room plunged into darkness.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she heard something break in his voice.

Buster chose that moment to pad up the bed and settle between them, purring like a small engine. Sarah buried her face in the cat's fur, feeling the vibration against her cheek. Behind her, Mark's breathing slowed. For the first time in months, he wasn't checking anything.

"Start with tomorrow," she said into the darkness. "Just tomorrow."

She felt his hand find hers in the dark.

"Tomorrow," he said.