The Last Supper

Marcus pushed the **spinach** around his plate, the leaves already wilting in the vinegar he'd added too liberally. Across the table, Elena watched him with those eyes that used to hold everything he wanted — now they held only pity.

"You're doing it again," she said, her voice soft but final. "Overthinking every bite like it's a referendum on your character."

"It's not the spinach," he said, though it was. It was everything. The organic, locally-sourced, responsibly-grown spinach that cost three times what the regular stuff did, because they were trying so hard to be the kind of people who cared about those things.

Their **dog**, Buster, lay beneath the table, his chin resting on Marcus's foot. The old golden retriever had been a wedding gift from Elena's parents, back when they still believed in forever. Buster was thirteen now, his muzzle gray, his breathing labored. Marcus felt the dog's warmth through his sock and wondered who would take care of him when this apartment was split down the middle.

The sun was setting through the kitchen window, bathing their dismantled life in **orange** light. It caught on the wine glasses — hers half-full, his empty — and made them glow like something precious that was about to be shattered.

"I met someone," Elena said, and Marcus waited for the rest, but there was no rest. That was the whole sentence. That was the knife.

The fight that followed was the kind you can't take back. Every **bull**shit grievance from seven years came spilling out — the time he'd worked through her birthday, the way she'd dismissed his novel as "a cute hobby," how they'd stopped asking how each other's days were because the answers had become too depressing.

When the dishes were cleared — silently, separately — Marcus sat on the back deck smoking a cigarette he'd sworn he'd quit, watching the orange fade to purple to black. Buster limped out and rested his head on Marcus's knee. The dog's brown eyes held a wisdom Marcus couldn't articulate: love doesn't require understanding.

Inside, Elena was packing. The spinach sat untouched on both their plates, a small green monument to the meal that ended their marriage.