The Last Supper at 47

Margaret found herself running down the corridor of the hospital, her sensible heels clacking against the linoleum. She wasn't running toward anything—she was running away from the conversation she'd just had with David, the one where he'd said "I think we should see other people" as if they were discussing dinner plans.

She burst into the courtyard and sat on a bench, clutching her mother's old felt hat that she'd brought for luck. The brim was crushed from sitting on it all morning. A tear splashed onto the velvet ribbon.

In the hospital room, her father's goldfish swam lazy circles in its bowl on the windowsill. The fish had outlived three wives, two hip replacements, and now, perhaps, Margaret's marriage. She watched it through the window, drifting in its cloudy water, content with so little.

Her mother had loved growing spinach in their tiny backyard garden. "The bitter greens make you strong," she'd say, standing with dirt under her fingernails and hope in her eyes, even as the chemotherapy made her too weak to stand. Margaret had hated the taste as a child, but now she found herself craving that particular sharpness—the way something could be good for you and terrible at the same time.

David had always called her mother's garden "charmingly rustic." Now she wondered what else he'd found charming enough to pretend to love. The running had stopped. Her chest heaved. She realized she was still holding the crushed hat, her mother's lucky charm, useless now.

The goldfish surfaced, mouth opening and closing at the water's surface. Inside, machines beeped. Outside, life continued its indifferent rhythm. Margaret stood up, smoothed her skirt, and placed the hat on her head. It sat crookedly. She didn't fix it.

Some things, she decided, were better left imperfect.