The Season of Leaving

David stood in the doorway of the apartment that was no longer his, watching his ex-wife's cat weave between his legs. Max had chosen sides apparently, and David was on the losing end of that particular war.

"You're not taking the baseball stuff," Sarah had said yesterday, her voice flat. "You haven't picked up a bat since college."

She wasn't wrong. The dust on his old glove in the closet could pass for archaeological evidence. But David found himself retrieving it now, along with the faded hat he'd worn to every game his father took him to before the drinking got too bad. The brim was permanently bent, sweat-stained, carrying the ghost of a dozen summer afternoons.

He packed methodically, the way he approached everything now: carefully, quietly, without sudden movements. As if loud noises might shatter the fragile truce of their separation. The apartment felt like a crime scene where someone had already cleaned up the blood.

His stomach growled. The refrigerator held only condiments and a wilted bag of spinach Sarah had bought for a smoothie she never made. David stared at the green leaves, now slimy with age, and felt something crack open in his chest. That was them, wasn't it? Something intended for nourishment that had just sat there, neglected until it rotted.

He threw the spinach in the garbage.

His new place was across town, near a community center with a pool. The woman at the front desk had mentioned swimming lessons when he'd signed the lease, something about aquatic therapy being good for stress reduction. David had nodded, thinking of his father—how the old man had only ever seemed peaceful in water, as if the weightlessness briefly relieved him of gravity's relentless pull.

David sat on the floor of his empty living room, Max's warm weight settling against his thigh. Tomorrow he'd return the cat to Sarah. Tomorrow he'd start unpacking boxes in a neighborhood where no one knew his name. Tonight, he'd just sit here in his baseball hat, eating nothing, and practice the art of leaving quietly.