The Papaya Sunsets

Maria stood at the edge of the infinity pool, her third rum punch forgotten in her hand. Below, the Caribbean Sea stretched dark and endless, matching the hollow space in her chest where her marriage plans used to live. The papaya she'd eaten for breakfast sat sour in her stomach, a reminder that she'd booked this honeymoon suite alone.

A stray cat wound around her ankles, its ribs visible through patchy ginger fur. Maria had named him Tuesday, as if giving him a day of the week might make him hers, might make something stick in this floating world of tourists and transience. She knelt, scratching behind his ears, and the cat purred with a greed that made her throat tight.

"Shouldn't you be with your husband?" The desk clerk had asked when she checked in, and Maria had lied: "He's joining tomorrow."

Tomorrow had come and gone. Now it was day five of what should have been her honeymoon, and the only constant was the old dog that belonged to the resort manager. A golden retriever with white-muzzled patience, he followed her at dusk along the beach, his gait stiff with arthritis. He'd rest his heavy head against her thigh when she sat on the sand, both of them waiting for something—companionship, comfort, anything to fill the salt-scoured silence.

Palm fronds rattled in the evening breeze, dry skeletons against the violet sky. Maria remembered Richard's voice: "You're too sentimental, Maria. Emotions aren't building plans. They're weather."

Weather. She could handle weather. She'd handled the hurricane of his leaving, the flood of her own embarrassment when she'd had to call her mother and say the wedding was off, the slow erosion of her savings to pay for this non-refundable trip she couldn't bear to cancel.

The cat climbed into her lap, kneading her thighs with sharp claws. Pain was something, at least. Pain meant she was still here, still flesh and bone and beating heart. The dog settled beside her chair, his warm flank pressing against her leg.

"I need to tell you something," Richard had said, two weeks before the wedding. "I met someone."

The papaya tree outside her balcony had dropped fruit that night. She'd heard them thud against the ground in the dark, small deaths.

Maria finished her drink. The cat watched her, then turned and padded toward the kitchen, toward the staff who might share their dinner. The dog stretched, yawned, and followed, his loyalty conditional but honest.

She would go back tomorrow. To her apartment, her job, the ruin of her carefully constructed future. But tonight, she ordered another drink from the passing waiter, and watched the papaya sun sink into the sea, burning itself out in magnificent, selfish color.