The Last Supper of September

Marcus stood on the padel court at dusk, the orange ball skidding across the surface like something dying. Sarah watched from the bench, her arms crossed tight against her chest. They'd been trying for eighteen months—eighteen months of temperature charts and ovulation kits and the voice in her head that kept whispering *defective*.

"You're not even trying," she said when he joined her, sweat slicking his temples.

Marcus took the vitamin supplements from his pocket—D3, zinc, CoQ10—a pharmaceutical cocktail of hope. "I take them every morning, Sarah. Just like you asked."

"Not the pills. This." She gestured at the empty court, at the life they were supposed to be building together. "You think if we win enough matches, if we keep busy enough, we won't have to talk about what's actually happening."

They'd stopped at a farm stand on the drive here. Sarah had selected an orange with infinite care, rolling it between her palms before choosing. She peeled it now, the scent sharp and violent in the cooling air. She offered him a section, juice running down her wrist, and he thought: this is what marriage looks like. Not the wedding photos or the mortgage. This. Standing in parking lots after failed appointments, sharing fruit like communion wine.

"My sister's pregnant," she said quietly. "She announced it at dinner tonight. While you were in the bathroom."

Marcus closed his eyes. He'd suspected—everyone in her family was pregnant or announcing pregnancies, a parade of bellies and due dates that made their apartment feel like a waiting room for a procedure that kept getting postponed.

Their cat, Barnaby, appeared from somewhere—like he always did, like some small gray oracle—winding between Marcus's legs. They'd found him as a stray three years ago, scrawny and pregnant herself. They'd named him Barnaby because it sounded like someone who'd survive anything.

"What if we stop?" Marcus asked. The words hung there, impossible and necessary. "What if we're done?"

Sarah ate the last section of orange, swallowed. When she looked at him, really looked at him, he saw the weight she'd been carrying—all the procedures and tears and the way she measured her worth in failed cycles.

"I'm tired," she said. "God, Marcus. I'm so tired of being two people trying to become three."

They stood there as the sky deepened, the parking lot emptying out. Somewhere in the distance, children were laughing. But for now, they were just themselves again. Not a project. Not a patient and a provider. Just two people in the failing light, watching a cat chase moths under the streetlamps, learning how to be enough.