The Orange Cable

The coaxial cable lay severed across the carpet like a dead snake, its copper wire exposed—a fitting metaphor for the twelve years we'd spent together. Elena had ripped it from the wall during her third hour of packing, somewhere between throwing her vintage clothing into boxes and screaming that I'd never understood her need for chaos.

I sat on the orange Crate & Barrel sofa we'd bought with that first big bonus—when we still believed in the permanence of furniture, of careers, of us. The dog, a neurotic rescue named Buster who'd attached himself to me after Elena stopped coming home, rested his chin on my knee. His eyes were ancient, knowing.

"She's not coming back," I told him. Buster thumped his tail once, agreeing.

The television had been Elena's obsession. Reality shows, true crime, anything to drown out the silence of our childless condo. Now the screen sat dark, reflecting my own hollowed expression back at me.

I found myself eating an orange from the fruit bowl—something Elena would have chastised me for doing over the carpet. The citrus burst against my tongue, sharp and uncompromising. It was the first thing I'd tasted properly in months.

The cable guy arrived at four. Young, tattooed, smelling of cigarettes and desperation. He looked at the severed cable, then at me, then at Buster.

"Rough night?" he asked, threading a replacement cable through the wall.

"You could say that."

"My wife left me last month," he said, not looking up. "Took the PlayStation. Left me the cat."

We sat there for a moment, two men tethered to nothing but copper wire and the weight of things that had ended. The orange peel sat on the coffee table like a small, bright wound.

"You want to come back later?" I asked. "We could order a pizza. Watch whatever this thing picks up."

He smiled—a genuine thing that reached his eyes. "I get off at seven."

Buster lifted his head, as if considering this new development. Something unspooled in my chest, not hope exactly, but something close enough. The orange rind still caught the afternoon light, impossibly bright against all this gray.