The Supplementation Protocol

Margot lined up the supplements on her granite countertop like ammunition. Vitamin D for the seasonal affective disorder that never quite lifted. Magnesium for the muscles that stayed perpetually clenched. B-complex for the fatigue that had settled into her bones three years ago and refused to budge.

"You're doing it again," said David, leaning against the doorframe in his boxer briefs. "The ritual."

"It's not a ritual. It's science." She dry-swallowed the vitamin D capsule, wincing as it scraped her throat.

David didn't argue. He never argued anymore. That was the problem. Or maybe that was the solution. Margot couldn't tell anymore.

Their cat, Barnaby, wound through her legs, purring like a small engine. At least someone still wanted to be close to her.

"I ran into Sarah at Whole Foods," David said. "She asked how we're doing."

"And?"

"I didn't know what to say." He pushed off the doorframe and moved to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. But the embrace felt administrative, not affectionate. Like checking a box. "Are we happy, Margot?"

She stared at the remaining pills in their neat row. "I'm trying to be."

"Trying." He breathed the word into her hair. "Since when is happiness something you have to work at?"

She turned to face him. "Since everything else fell apart. Since the promotion. Since your mother died. Since we stopped sleeping in the same bed without a precipitating reason."

"I still sleep in your bed."

"You sleep in the bed. You don't sleep with me."

David stepped back, his face crumpling. "I thought we were taking space. I thought that's what you needed."

"What I needed was for you to fight for me."

"Fighting isn't who I am."

"Exactly." Barnaby jumped onto the counter and knocked the vitamin bottle sideways. Orange pills scattered across the granite like fallen stars.

David dropped to his knees to gather them. "I could change."

"Could you?" Margot watched him, her heart racing in a way it hadn't in years. "Because I think you're like a fox—beautiful and careful and always watching your own back. And I need someone who will occasionally risk getting hunted."

He looked up at her, orange pills cupped in his palms like an offering. "I could risk it. For you."

Margot considered the pills he held, the supplements she took daily to fix herself, the vitamin deficiencies she'd quantified and catalogued as if cellular function explained the hollowness in her chest.

"Start now," she said. "Ask me again."

"Are we happy, Margot?"

"No," she said, reaching for his hand. "But we could be."

Barnaby purred louder, as if in agreement. Outside, something stirred in the garden—maybe a fox, maybe just the wind. Either way, something was waking up.