The Last Supper

The fluorescent light overhead buzzed like a dying insect. Marcus stared at his wife across the restaurant table, watching her spear a piece of wilted spinach with unnecessary precision. They hadn't spoken in twenty minutes—not really spoken—in six months.

"Did you get the oranges?" Sarah asked suddenly, not looking up from her plate.

Marcus blinked. "What?"

"From the market. You said you'd pick up oranges for your mother's birthday cake."

The cake. The birthday celebration he'd forgotten until that morning, when he'd sent a text promising to be there by six. It was now seven-forty, and they were still at dinner, though neither of them was eating.

"I forgot," Marcus said. The words hung between them like smoke.

Sarah finally looked up. Her eyes were tired, the kind of tired that sleep couldn't fix. "You forgot a lot of things lately."

Outside, a storm had been brewing all day. Now lightning cracked the sky, violet veins through dark clouds. The restaurant's windows flashed with it, illuminating the harsh geometry of Sarah's face in stroboscopic bursts. In that frozen moment between thunderclaps, Marcus understood something with sudden, terrible clarity.

She wasn't waiting for him to change anymore. She had already left.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it for the first time in years. Not just about the oranges. About all of it—the promotion he'd chased while their marriage crumbled, the conversations deferred until they became impossible, the way he'd stopped seeing her as a person and started seeing her as furniture in a life he'd stopped inhabiting.

Sarah set down her fork. The spinach remained uneaten. "Sorry doesn't fix anything, Marcus."

Outside, rain began to fall, sudden and violent. Lightning struck again, closer this time. The restaurant's lights flickered.

"No," he agreed. "But it's true."

She studied him for a long moment, really looked at him, perhaps for the first time in months. "Then start listening. Not just hearing. Listening."

The check came. Marcus reached for it automatically, the old habit of performing his role without thought. But Sarah's hand covered his.

"We split it," she said. "Like we split everything else."

They paid in silence. Outside, the storm had already passed, leaving behind that strange, electric calm that follows chaos. The air smelled of rain and possibility. Marcus thought about oranges—the way they burst when you peel them, bright and unexpected—and realized some things could still be fresh, if you were brave enough to tear away the rind.

"Walk with me?" he asked.

Sarah hesitated, then nodded. "Alright."

They stepped into the wet night together.