The Last Supper at Mamma's

The restaurant's walls were painted a violent orange, the color of a sunset seen through smog. Sarah sat across from him, her black dress clinging like something ashamed to be seen. Three years after the divorce papers were signed, and here they were, still drawn together by the gravitational pull of their shared disaster.

He watched her pick at her spinach salad, those delicate movements he once found charming now seeming like affectations. She'd always been performing something—happiness, contentment, love. The lightning strike of their first meeting at the corporate retreat flashed through his memory: how she'd reached across the conference table to save his presentation from a coffee stain, her laugh genuine in that moment, or so he'd believed.

"Your hat," she said suddenly, and he realized he was still wearing his father's old fedora, the one he'd retrieved from the hospice closet three days ago. "It doesn't suit you."

"It belonged to him."

"Everything did."

The accusation hung between them like smoke. She was right, of course. He'd spent their marriage carrying his father's expectations like a physical weight, a bear he couldn't put down. The man had been dead five years and still dictated the temperature of every room.

"I sold the house," he said, and watched her hands still. "The one with the garden."

She looked up, and for the first time that evening, the performance dropped. Something raw surfaced in her eyes—not love, not hate, but recognition. They were both survivors of the same shipwreck, treading water in the same endless ocean.

"Good," she said softly. "That place was eating you alive."

The waiter appeared with their entrées, and he realized he wasn't hungry. The sight of food made him think of hospital trays, of his father's last meal, of all the meals he and Sarah had eaten in silence while the television flickered between them.

"Why did you come tonight?" he asked.

Sarah set down her fork. The restaurant's orange walls seemed to pulse. Outside, lightning split the sky, illuminating everything for one terrible, honest second.

"Because," she said, "I needed to see if you were still drowning."

He finished his wine, the liquid burning all the way down. "I'm learning to swim."

She nodded once, the gesture almost imperceptible. Then she picked up her purse and stood, leaving her salad untouched. The spinach lay wilting on her plate, a small green thing that had never gotten the chance to become anything.

He watched her walk away, and for the first time in three years, he didn't follow.