The Menagerie of Exiles

Arthur sat in his study, surrounded by the taxidermy his father had left him. The glass eyes of every creature seemed to accuse him of something he couldn't quite name. The grizzly bear stood frozen in mid-roar, its massive paws forever suspended in violence. Arthur had always hated it—the way its fur matted in the humidity, how it dominated the room like a debt that could never be repaid.

His phone buzzed on the desk. Sarah again. The third time this evening. He stared at her contact photo: Sarah laughing, palm trees swaying behind her on that trip to Key West where she'd first said she was unhappy. She'd wanted to try, she'd said. She'd wanted them to be like the retired couple they'd met at the tiki bar—two people who still found things to say to each other after thirty years.

Arthur had just wanted another drink.

Now the house was half-packed. The real estate agent had suggested staging it with "warm" touches. So here he was, displaced in his own home, sleeping on the couch because the bedroom was too empty without her. The Siamese cat she'd refused to leave behind, Merlin, had taken to sleeping on Arthur's chest, purring with a possessiveness that felt almost mocking.

He picked up the old baseball glove from the shelf. His father's, from before the war, before the drinking, before everything that followed. The leather was cracked, the pocket worn smooth from thousands of catches. Arthur had tried to play catch with him once, when he was ten. His father had thrown one perfect strike, then walked inside and never picked up the glove again.

The fox mounted above the door watched him with its clever copper eyes. His father had shot it during a hunt in Montana, or so he'd claimed. Arthur suspected he'd bought it from some dusty shop, just as he'd bought most of his hunting stories. But the fox was beautiful regardless—sleek and cunning, everything Arthur wasn't.

"You're not a bad man," Sarah had said during the last conversation, the one where she'd finally stopped crying. "You're just not present. You're always somewhere else, even when you're right here."

He opened the bottom desk drawer and found the brochure she'd left behind. Palm Springs. Singles retreats for the "spiritually adventurous." She'd circled dates in September.

Merlin meowed, jumping onto the desk and knocking the brochure to the floor. The cat sat on it, staring at Arthur with those ancient, judging eyes.

Arthur set down the baseball glove and picked up his phone. Three missed calls. He could still call her back. He could pack the car tomorrow, drive down to Palm Springs, sit across from her in some circle of strangers holding hands and talking about chakras, and try to remember why he'd fallen in love with her in the first place.

Instead, he called the taxidermist his father had used.

"I have some pieces I'd like to sell," Arthur said when the line connected. "A bear. A fox. Some others."

The bear seemed to sigh. The fox watched, motionless. Outside, the neighborhood was silent, everyone asleep in their intact lives. Arthur hung up the phone and went to find a box.