The Summer We Stopped Keeping Score

The papaya sat on the counter between us, ripe and alien, its orange flesh waiting. Martin had bought it on some impulse at the market—the kind of small gesture that used to mean everything, now just another item in our accumulating inventory of disappointments.

"You're leaving," I said, not a question.

Outside, a cat screamed—some neighborhood tom defending his territory against the dusk. The sound cut through the kitchen's suffocating silence.

"I met someone," Martin said at last. "At work."

My hands tightened around the countertop's edge. "The new analyst?"

"The one from the Boston office. She was here for the merger meetings."

Baseball droned from the living room, forgotten commentary filling the empty spaces between us. I'd turned it on for distraction, but the game's rhythm failed to comfort me.

"She's younger," I realized, the realization hitting like a bat finding nothing but air.

Martin didn't answer. The sun dipped below the window frame, painting the kitchen in bruised purple light. I thought about the papaya, how neither of us even liked it that much. How we'd bought it because fresh fruit seemed like something a happy couple would eat.

Something moved in the backyard—a fox slipping along the property line, impossibly orange against the dying grass. It moved with purpose, head low, hunting. I watched it through the screen door, admiring its ruthless clarity.

"Say something," Martin said.

I opened the papaya with a knife, its flesh yielding beneath the blade. Black seeds spilled onto the cutting board like dangerous secrets.

"Sunday," I said. "The game was on Sunday. Not today."

Martin blinked, confused.

"When you met her. It was Sunday, during the Red Sox game. You told me you were working late."

The fox vanished into the neighbor's yard. The cat's screams had stopped. The papaya lay exposed, its vibrant flesh suddenly seeming less like an exotic fruit and more like a wound.

"I'll stay at your brother's," Martin said quietly.

"No," I said, surprising myself with my calm. "You bought the papaya. You deal with it."

I walked out into the cooling evening, leaving behind the fruit, the game, the life I'd somehow stopped noticing was ending. Somewhere nearby, a screen door slammed, and I wondered what the fox would catch tonight.