The Lightning Cut Through

Sophie had been swimming through the merger documents for three weeks straight, moving through her brownstone like a zombie—automatically feeding the cat, automatically taking her prenatal vitamins with the morning light, automatically kissing Marcus's cheek when he left for his startup. She'd stopped asking how his day was somewhere around month seven of trying to conceive, somewhere around the time he started coming home smelling of artisanal gin and someone else's perfume.

The rooftop bar was empty except for the bartender polishing glasses with religious devotion. Sophie perched on a stool, watching the storm roll across Manhattan like a dark bruise. Lightning fractured the sky—silver veins against purple skin—and for a second, everything was illuminated: the expensive whiskey she'd ordered, the worry lines she'd stopped noticing in the mirror, the sphinx-like silence between her and Marcus that had grown comfortable somehow.

"You look like someone who's solved the riddle," the bartender said, sliding her drink across the copper surface. "But you don't like the answer."

The lightning struck closer, thunder rattling the glass doors. Sophie thought about the vitamins in her purse, the timing apps, the way Marcus had started staying late at the office. She thought about the sphinx who asked: what walks on four legs, then two, then three? The answer was man—and somewhere in that progression, something got broken. Some essential piece that couldn't be fixed with supplements or date nights or the polite fiction that they were both still trying.

She pulled out her phone, opened the fertility tracker, and deleted it. Then the shared calendar. Then the photos from their anniversary weekend at that bed and breakfast in Vermont where they'd pretended everything wasn't already dead between them.

Another flash of lightning. The storm was nearly here.

"You're right," Sophie said, sliding off the stool. "I don't like the answer." She pressed a twenty into the bartender's hand and headed for the elevator, leaving her drink untouched. Some things, you finally understood, weren't worth swallowing anymore.