The Last Supper at 7:42 PM

Maria stared at the iphone on the kitchen counter. It wasn't hers. The screen lit up with a notification: "Can't wait for tonight—Coach's." Her husband David's phone. She'd been chopping spinach for dinner, the knife now hovering over the green leaves as her hands trembled.

Her best friend Jen had warned her about the late baseball practices. "Three times a week? For a corporate recreational league? That's a lot of teamwork, Maria."

She'd laughed it off. David loved baseball. It was his escape from the vitamin D deficiencies of office life, his chance to feel like twenty-five again instead of forty-two, with a mortgage and creeping hairline recession. The sport had been their compromise—she let him keep his Wednesday and Friday nights, and he let her pretend he was just being nostalgic for college glory days.

The spinach hit the pan with a violent sizzle. Outside, summer light faded over the backyard. David would be home soon. He'd smell the garlic, ask about her day, maybe mention something about the game—how they'd finally beaten the accounting team, how his batting average was improving. He'd smile, and she'd wonder if that smile had been practicing its sincerity in someone else's kitchen.

She grabbed the vitamin supplements from the cabinet. His, hers, a neat row of promises. His vitamin D tablets sat next to her prenatal vitamins they'd stopped trying to use two years ago. The irony burned like bile in her throat. She almost swept them onto the floor.

"Maria?" David's key in the lock. "Smells great."

Her phone lit up again. Same number. "Hope you're hungry. Wear that blue dress."

She turned off the stove. The spinach wilted in the pan, surrendering to heat like she had for years. Their marriage had been a slow reduction, she realized—boiling away until only the essence remained, and even that had grown bitter.

"How was the game?" she asked when he walked in, dirt still on his cleats.

"Lost." He grinned, pulling his jersey over his head. "But I got two hits."

"And the other thing?" Her voice sounded calm, foreign.

His hesitation. The pause. The way his eyes flickered toward his phone on the counter. "What other thing?"

"The other thing you lost tonight. The truth."

His phone lit up: "Leaving now. See you in 20."

Maria didn't cry. She took her own iphone from her pocket, called Jen. "Hey," Jen answered. "How's the spinach?"

"Burnt." Maria placed the phone on the counter beside David's. "But I think I'm finally hungry for something real."