The Orange Hour

The moment Maya stepped out of their apartment, the late afternoon sun caught her hair—that particular shade of orange she'd dyed it after their first anniversary, back when they still believed in symbols. Tom watched from the window as she walked away, her silhouette shrinking against the amber light.

His iPhone buzzed on the kitchen counter. Her name. Again.

He'd stopped answering three days ago, when the silence between them had grown too loud to bear. Now she was calling from somewhere out there, in the world he'd watched her walk into.

Barnaby—their cat, or his cat now—jumped onto the windowsill, tail flicking with that deliberate indifference only cats possess. The animal had chosen Maya's lap from day one, had slept curled against her chest through six years of mornings. Now he stared at the empty street, as if waiting.

Tom remembered the hat she'd left behind. That ridiculous wool thing she'd worn to his sister's wedding, the one they'd laughed about in bed later, her cheeks flushed with champagne and something like happiness. It still hung on the coat rack, a ghost of who they'd been.

His thumb hovered over the screen.

The orange light was fading now, the sky bruising purple at the edges. He thought about all the words they hadn't said. All the silences they'd filled with small things—work talk, dinner plans, complaints about the weather—while the real things rotted beneath them.

Barnaby meowed, a thin, demanding sound.

"I know," Tom said.

Outside, a car turned onto their street. Maya's car. It slowed, then stopped.

His iPhone lit up again. Not a call this time. A text: *I forgot my hat.*

The sun dipped below the horizon. The orange hour was over.

He walked to the door, his hand on the knob. Some endings leave room for beginning again. Some don't. He wasn't sure yet which this was—only that the waiting, at least, was done.

He opened the door.