The Palm Reader's Error

Maggie's palm sweated against the cold metal table in the dim booth of O'Reilly's Bar. Across from her, Tom's iphone lit up with another notification—his third in twenty minutes. She watched his thumb hover over the screen, that familiar gesture that had come between them more often than his own body lately.

"You're going to miss it," she said, voice flat.

"Miss what?" Tom didn't look up. The blue light cast shadows across his face, aging him by decades in the harsh fluorescence.

"The game. You promised."

Tom sighed, the sound of a man carrying too much weight. "It's just baseball, Mag. We can watch the highlights."

Just baseball. The words landed like stones. Baseball had been their thing—Sunday afternoons at the park, cheap beers, him explaining the mechanics of a slider while she pretended not to know more about the sport than he did. They'd met at a game five years ago. Fox Stadium, section 214, both reaching for the same dropped nacho.

A fox had darted across the parking lot after that game. They'd watched it together, mangy but magnificent, disappearing into the urban wilderness. "Like us," Tom had said. "Two scavengers making it work."

Now Maggie looked at the wilted spinach salad she'd ordered, watching condensation weep down her water glass. The bartender was calling last call. The phone buzzed again.

"It's Jennifer," Tom said finally. "She's having a hard time with the divorce."

Jennifer. His ex-wife's name still tasted like bile in Maggie's throat. "Does Jennifer know you're here with me?"

Tom's silence answered her.

Maggie remembered the palm reader at the county fair last summer. The old woman had traced the lines on Maggie's hand, paused at her heart line, and frowned. "You'll face a choice," she'd said. "Stay and fade, or leave and bloom."

Maggie had laughed, paid her twenty bucks, and walked away with Tom's hand in hers.

Tonight, she slid out of the booth. "Where are you going?" Tom finally looked up, his phone darkening in his hand.

"Home," she said. "Or somewhere else. I haven't decided yet."

"Maggie, wait. You're overreacting."

She pushed through the bar's heavy door into the cool October night. Somewhere in the distance, a fox screamed—a sharp, desperate sound that echoed in her chest. Her palm no longer felt sweaty. It felt empty, open, ready.

Behind her, through the bar's glass, she saw Tom's iphone light up again. She kept walking.