The Papaya Summer

The papaya ripened on the counter, its skin turning from green to sunset orange, watching us unravel. We'd rented the cabin for the summer—two months to fix what felt impossible to repair. The cable was spotty at best, cutting out during storms like a bad connection we couldn't quite establish.

I remember watching him that first week, shirtless in the lake, swimming laps back and forth while I sat on the dock with my laptop, pretending to work. The way his arms cut through water made me think of baseball, the summer we'd met, when he'd played in that local league and I'd sat in the bleachers pretending to understand the game. We'd been so young then. The papaya had been my idea—something tropical, something fresh to replace the stale air between us.

A fox appeared at the edge of the property on our third week. Lean, russet-coated, watching us with eyes that knew everything. I'd leave it scraps from dinner, feeling like I was feeding some part of myself that still wanted to be seen, to be witnessed in my unhappiness. "You're encouraging it," he'd say, not looking up from his book. "They carry diseases." Everything carried something that could ruin us, eventually.

The papaya finally ripened that last week. I cut it open alone in the kitchen while he was out—supposedly swimming, though I'd noticed him taking the car more often lately. The flesh was soft, yielding, nothing like I'd expected. It tasted like somewhere else, like beaches we'd never visited together, like mornings I'd woken alone even when he was beside me.

He came back smelling like someone else's perfume. I didn't ask. The fox watched from the window as I packed my things. Later I'd learn he'd been driving into town to meet someone—someone from the baseball league, someone who understood the game better than I ever had.

The papaya sat on the counter, half-eaten, turning brown where I'd left it. Some things, I realized, don't get better with waiting. They just spoil.