The Vitamin Hours

Maya stood before the bathroom mirror, her morning ritual precise as surgery. One multivitamin, swallowed dry. Then the omega-3. Then the B-complex she'd started taking after David started sleeping in the guest room.

"You're like a zombie," he'd said last night, not looking up from his phone. "Just going through the motions."

She wanted to argue, but some part of her wondered if he was right. She'd been feeling hollowed out for months—since the promotion, since the miscarriage she never talked about, since she stopped recognizing the woman in the mirror.

Downstairs, her elderly dog Barnaby lifted his head from his bed, thumping his tail once. The cat, Sphinx, watched from the counter with yellow eyes that seemed to know everything. Maya had named her Sphinx years ago, after the riddle-giving creature, because the cat seemed perpetually amused by human foolishness.

"David's gone," she told them. Barnaby whined. Sphinx blinked.

Outside, the neighborhood sprawled in the morning haze, all identical houses with their identical lives. Maya felt like she was solving a riddle she hadn't been given: what do you do when you have everything you're supposed to want, and still you want to disappear?

She thought about asking Sphinx, but the cat only yawned, stretching in a slow, liquid motion that made Maya's own body feel stiff and wrong.

The vitamins sat in their organized containers. Tiny promises of health, of energy, of becoming someone else entirely. She dry-swallowed another B-complex.

Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm started. Sphinx jumped down and wound around Maya's legs, purring. Barnaby sighed, settling back into sleep.

Maybe that was the answer: you don't solve the riddle. You just pet the cat, walk the dog, and take your vitamins. You show up for the small things. You stay soft in a world that wants you hard.

"Okay," Maya said aloud. Sphinx purred louder. And for the first time in months, something in her chest felt like it might be healing.