The Palm Reader's Lunch

The spinach stuck between her molars had been there since lunch, but Elena couldn't bring herself to care. Her iPhone buzzed again on the conference table—Richard, texting for the third time in ten minutes. She ignored it.

"The vitamin D supplements aren't working," David said, slumping in the chair across from her. He looked smaller than he had last week. "Doctor says I need to reconsider the Chicago transfer."

Elena studied her palm, where a tremor had taken up residence sometime in her forties. "You've got two kids in college, David. You can't just—"

"I'm tired, El." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm tired of being the bull in this china shop. The merger, the restructuring—it's all just noise."

Her phone lit up with Richard's name again. This time she picked it up.

"Everything okay?" David asked.

"Richard wants to know if I'm coming to the holiday party." She set the phone down face-first. "He thinks I'm being difficult about the divorce."

David's expression softened. "You're not being difficult. You're being honest."

"I filed the papers yesterday." The admission hung between them like smoke. "Twenty years, and I just... filed."

"Because you deserve better than someone who texts through a dinner you planned three weeks in advance." David's voice was gentle. "Because you deserve to not feel like an afterthought in your own marriage."

The spinach in her teeth suddenly seemed hilarious. Elena started laughing—quietly at first, then until her shoulders shook. David joined in, that wheezing laugh of his that always made her think of old jazz records.

"We're quite the pair," she said when she could breathe again. "A middle-aged divorcée and a man with a heart condition, eating sad desk salads."

"Could be worse," David said. "We could be doing it alone."

Elena looked at her palm again. The tremor was still there, but it didn't matter as much as it had this morning. Some things you couldn't fix. Some things you could.

"The vitamin D," she said. "Have you tried the liquid kind? Better absorption."

"No," David said, already reaching for his phone to order it. "You know what? I haven't."

Outside, the snow began to fall, and for the first time in months, Elena didn't check her iPhone to see if Richard had noticed.