The Last Supper

The fluorescent light hummed overhead as Sarah placed the bottle of orange pills on the table between them. Vitamin D, the doctor had prescribed—something about northern winters and seasonal depression, as if a supplement could fix what three years of marriage had slowly eroded.

Mark didn't look up from his phone. His friend David had texted again. Always David—whose calls he took in the garage, whose jokes made him laugh in that way Sarah hadn't heard since their honeymoon in Barcelona. She'd stopped asking where he went on those long Saturday runs. She'd learned that some questions, once asked, can't be unasked.

'You remember that weekend in Montana?' she asked, her voice steady despite the knot in her chest.

Mark glanced at the vitamin bottle, then at her. 'The cabin? Sure. Why?'

'I was thinking about the bear.' Sarah reached for her wine glass. 'The one that raided our cooler that first night. You were so terrified, hiding behind me while I waved that frying pan.' She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. 'I realized something recently. I've been the one waving the pan for a long time now. Scaring off the bears, real and metaphorical.'

Mark's phone buzzed again. He started to reach for it, then stopped.

'Sarah—'

'And then there's the fox,' she continued. 'Do you remember? The next morning, watching it from the porch. You said it was beautiful—how it moved so carefully, like it knew every step mattered. You said you wanted to be like that.' She studied him. 'But somewhere along the way, you forgot.'

The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating. Outside, rain began to tap against the window, persistent and cold.

Mark finally pushed his phone away. 'David wants me to come over. He's going through something with Jen.' He looked at Sarah, really looked at her, for the first time in months. 'But I think I should stay here.'

Sarah slid the vitamin bottle toward him. 'Take one,' she said. 'For the winter.' She paused. 'And then call David. Tell him you can't make it.'

Mark hesitated. Outside, something moved in the darkness—quiet, deliberate, like it knew exactly where it was going.

'Okay,' he said.

Sarah watched his hand as it reached for the bottle. Some steps, she realized, could still be taken carefully. Some bears could still be frightened away. But some foxes only appeared when you finally stopped moving long enough to see them.