The Spinach in His Teeth

The spinach was there. Right there, between his front teeth, a tiny green flag of surrender as he leaned across the candlelit table and told me he wanted a divorce.

I watched it, fascinated. We were at L'Étoile, the restaurant where he'd proposed eight years ago, where I'd spent two months' worth of my copywriter's salary on a dress I now hated. David's hair was different then—thicker, darker, without the distinguished gray I'd once found charming and now found exhausting. He was still handsome, I supposed, in that way that men age into while women are expected to fight it tooth and manicured nail.

"It's not you," he said, and I wanted to laugh. He had spinach in his teeth. Our entire marriage was ending and there was spinach in his teeth.

His iPhone buzzed against the linen tablecloth. The seventh time in twenty minutes. He kept ignoring it, but I knew who it was. Sarah from accounting. Sarah whose hair was always perfect, whose Instagram stories featured spin classes and green juices and mornings I'd never managed to master.

"You should get that," I said.

"It can wait."

"Really?" I lifted my wine glass. "It's been buzzing all dinner. I'm surprised she hasn't called the restaurant yet."

David's face hardened. The spinach remained, a mocking witness to his cowardice.

"This is exactly why," he said. "You're always—you see everything. You notice everything. It's exhausting, Marie."

He wanted a woman who wouldn't notice the spinach. Who wouldn't notice the late nights. Who wouldn't notice his phone lighting up with messages at 11 PM, at 2 AM, at 6:30 in the morning when he claimed to be going for a run.

The sommelier appeared, decanting an expensive red I'd stopped tasting three courses ago. His eyes flicked between us, sensing something, because restaurant waiters always sense these things. He poured. I drank.

I thought about our apartment, about the half-unpacked boxes from our move six months ago that still sat in the hallway because David was "too busy" and I was "too tired." About the way he'd stopped asking about my day, stopped noticing when I got my hair cut, stopped seeing me unless he needed something—sex, sympathy, an audience for his stories about the important work he did, the important people he met.

The spinach was starting to dry out, turning darker against his tooth. How had no one told him? How had he not felt it, seen it in the compact mirror he kept in his briefcase?

"I've met someone," he said finally.

"Sarah."

"How did you—"

"Your iPhone, David. You leave it everywhere. You leave it on the nightstand. You leave it on the kitchen counter. You leave it charging in the bathroom. And the notifications always say the same thing. 'Sarah: Can't wait to see you.' 'Sarah: Thinking of you.' 'Sarah: Tonight?'"

He looked at his phone, then at me. Something flickered in his eyes—shame, maybe, or just irritation that I'd noticed. That I'd always noticed.

"You could have said something."

"You could have not been having an affair."

"It's not an affair. We're separated. We've been separated for months. You just won't admit it."

Was that true? Had we been separated while sharing a bed? Separated while eating dinner together, watching Netflix, arguing about whose turn it was to call the plumber? Had our marriage died while we were still living in it?

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"Okay. Let's do it. Let's divorce."

I thought about water. About how I'd wanted a baby but he'd said we needed to wait, needed more money, needed a bigger apartment. About how I'd cried in the shower so he wouldn't hear, the water washing away tears I wasn't supposed to cry because I was a modern woman and I had everything and I should be grateful.

"But first," I said, reaching across the table, "you need to know something."

"What?"

"For eight years," I said softly, "you've had spinach in your teeth. Every time we've had spinach. Every time. And I've never told you. I've always handed you a mirror, or a napkin, or made a gesture, because that's what you do for someone you love. You don't embarrass them. You help them save face."

His hand went to his mouth.

"But tonight," I continued, "tonight I let it sit there. Because I wanted to see if you'd notice. If you'd notice anything about me. If you'd notice that I've been unhappy for years. If you'd notice that I've been waiting for you to see me."

I stood up, smoothing my dress.

"You didn't notice, David. You didn't notice the spinach. You didn't notice me. And you definitely didn't notice that I stopped loving you somewhere between the second and third year, and just stayed because leaving seemed harder than staying."

The restaurant was quiet around us. A violin played somewhere.

"Your phone," I said. "Answer it. It's probably Sarah."

I walked out into the night air, leaving him there with the check and the spinach and the iPhone lighting up again and again on the table, like a tiny, desperate heart trying to beat itself back to life.