The Last Supper

The golden retriever lay sprawled across the Persian rug, the only living thing in the apartment that still looked at me without judgment. His name was Barnaby, and he was hers. Not ours anymore. Just hers.

"You're not even listening," Maya said, her voice flat, worn down by three years of the same argument.

I swallowed my vitamin D supplement with the last of the warm merlot. "I am."

"Your phone just lit up again."

I glanced at the iPhone on the table—screen glowing with another Slack notification, another emergency that wasn't actually an emergency. The device had become a kind of lifeline and also the thing slowly choking me.

Outside, a summer storm was breaking. Lightning cracked the sky in half, illuminating the dining room for a split second—long enough to see Maya's face, the fine lines around her eyes, the way she'd stopped wearing makeup to dinner. Barnaby lifted his head at the thunder, then settled back down.

"I'm sorry," I said. And I meant it, which was the worst part.

"Sorry doesn't fix anything. Sorry is just noise."

She stood up and began clearing the table—her plate, her wineglass, the small stack of bills. Not mine. The deliberate geography of it made my chest hurt.

"What happens to Barnaby?" I asked, because I couldn't ask what happened to us.

"He stays. This is his home."

Another flash of lightning, closer this time. The storm mirrored everything I couldn't say—sudden, destructive, illuminating what we'd both been ignoring for months. The dog watched us with those ancient, patient eyes, having already chosen his side.

"Okay," I said.

I picked up my iPhone, already buzzing with the world's demands, and walked out into the rain.