The Static Between Us

The cable guy was three hours late, and Elena had spent the entire time alternating between rage and that hollow kind of resignation that comes when you realize your anger is just performance art for an audience of one.

"Sorry about the wait," he said, ducking under her entertainment center. His name was Marcus, according to the company polo shirt that was already stained with sweat. "Summer schedule's been brutal."

Elena watched him work, her eyes drawn to the small gray hair at his temple that he kept trying to smooth down with nervous fingers. It made her think of David, how he'd started finding gray hairs right after his mother died, how he'd let her pluck them from his temples on Sunday mornings while they pretended everything between them wasn't already unraveling like a cheap sweater.

"Found the problem," Marcus said, emerging with a tangled knot of coaxial cable. "Looks like something chewed through the insulation. Probably rats in the walls."

He laughed. She didn't.

"That's what David used to say," she found herself saying. "About the walls. About what was eating us from the inside."

Marcus's hands stilled. He looked at her, really looked at her, and for a second she saw something shift in his expression — recognition, maybe, or just the weight of someone else's grief settling temporarily on his shoulders. He pushed the replacement cable through the wall with practiced efficiency, his palms rough and calloused, nails bitten down to the quick.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky open, sudden and violent, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the gloom of her living room. The storm had been threatening all afternoon, a pressure headache building behind her eyes. Now it was finally breaking.

"All set," Marcus said, standing up and wiping his hands on his pants. "You should have service now."

Elena flipped on the TV. Perfectly clear. Some home renovation show where couples gutted houses together and pretended not to hate each other by the third commercial break.

"Thanks," she said, and meant it.

He nodded, already halfway out the door. "Take care of yourself, ma'am."

She watched his truck drive away through the rain-spattered window, and for the first time in three months, since the day David walked out with nothing but a suitcase and a handful of gray hair, Elena didn't feel entirely alone in the static.