The Last Supper

The coaxial cable lay severed on the kitchen floor like a dead snake, its copper guts exposed. Three years of premium channels, of streaming arguments during dinner, of background noise to fill the silences—gone with one careless tug from the vacuum cleaner.

Marcus stood over it, hands on hips, while Eleanor stirred a pot of wilting spinach at the stove. The kitchen filled with the bitter, metallic smell of cooking greens.

"It's probably a sign," Eleanor said, not turning around. "Like cutting the cord."

"Or it's a twelve-dollar repair," Marcus said.

She laughed, a dry, practiced sound. "Everything's a repair to you. The car. The dishwasher. Us."

The word hung between them, heavier than it should have been. Marcus opened the refrigerator and stared at the single orange sitting on the middle shelf, tucked behind a jar of expired mayonnaise. He'd bought it two weeks ago, thinking Vitamin C might help with the fatigue that had become his constant companion since the layoff. He hadn't touched it.

He took it out and began peeling it at the table, the citrus scent cutting through the spinach smell, sharp and hopeful in a way that made his chest ache.

"I got the call today," he said softly. "About the consulting gig."

Eleanor stopped stirring. "And?"

"Chicago."

The water in the pot hissed and popped, angry droplets scorching the burner. She turned off the flame.

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" Her voice was flat.

"It's six months. Maybe longer."

"So that's it then. You go, I stay. Or we both go? Six months of sublets and forwarded mail and pretending this is normal?"

Outside, summer lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the kitchen in harsh white flashes. Neither of them moved.

"Remember," Marcus said, "when we used to watch storms from the fire escape? That apartment in Wicker Park?"

"We were twenty-three," she said. "We ate spinach because we couldn't afford meat, and we thought being broke was romantic. We thought everything was romantic."

She reached across the table and took his hand. Her palm was warm, her fingers familiar. "I don't want to be thirty-seven and eating spinach out of necessity again, Marcus. I don't want to chase lightning."

The orange lay forgotten on the table, its bright segments like embers in the half-light. He looked at the severed cable on the floor, at the spinach cooling in the pot, at the woman he'd loved through three apartments and two recessions and one miscarriage they never spoke about.

"Chicago pays eighty thousand more," he said.

Eleanor squeezed his hand, then let go. "Then you should take it."