The Taxidermy of Our Marriage

The hat sat on the kitchen table like a confession waiting to be made. A felt fedora, the kind no one wore anymore except in jest or desperation. Beside it, the divorce papers — not signed yet, not final, just present in the way that only paper can be when it's about to dismantle a life.

Mark found me there, drinking coffee that had gone cold hours ago. He looked like a zombie, which was funny in a way that stopped being funny three years ago. The long hours at the firm had hollowed him out, left something that moved and spoke but didn't quite seem human anymore. I remembered when he used to surprise me with picnic lunches, back when we were poor and happy.

"You're like a bear in hibernation," he said, not unkindly. "Sleeping through everything."

I touched the brim of the hat. It had belonged to my father, who died wearing something similar, standing at a bus stop, heart giving out before the bus arrived. Death with dignity, at least.

"I'm not sleeping," I said. "I'm just not here anymore."

Our cat, Luna, wound around Mark's legs, purring like she knew something we didn't. She'd been the first sign of the cracks — we'd adopted her to fix something that couldn't be fixed. A pet as relationship repair kit, a modern folk tale.

"Sheila from work," Mark started, then stopped. "She asked about you."

"Sheila the fox?" I regretted it as soon as I said it. But it was true — Sheila was beautiful in a predatory way, all sharp angles and knowing smiles. I'd seen the way she looked at Mark, and the way he didn't exactly mind. Maybe that was the real thing between us, the unspoken infidelities that happen before any clothes ever come off.

"Don't." He rubbed his face. "I'm so tired."

"So am I."

The taxidermy of our marriage, I thought. Preserving something that had stopped living years ago. We'd been stuffing it full of obligations, shared history, fear of being alone, until it looked like something real. But underneath the glass eyes and the carefully arranged pose, there was nothing left but dust and memories.

"Take the hat," I said. "Dad would want someone to wear it."

Mark reached out, hesitated. For a moment, I thought we might cry, or maybe finally break everything at once — shout, throw things, let whatever was left of us spill out onto the kitchen floor.

Instead, he picked up the hat and put it on. It didn't suit him. It looked like costume, like dress-up, like a child playing at being something he wasn't.

"It fits," he said.

"No," I said, reaching for the pen beside the divorce papers. "It doesn't. But that's okay. Nothing really does anymore."

Outside, the morning was beginning. Somewhere, a bus was approaching a stop. Luna jumped into my lap, purring against my chest like a small, living thing in a world that had mostly stopped making sense. I uncapped the pen.