The Weight of Empty Hands

Margot stood in the bathroom of the apartment she no longer wanted, tweezers hovering over her chin. Another stray hair—dark, defiant, humiliating. At forty-two, her body had begun its quiet rebellion. She plucked it, wincing at the sharp bright pain, and wondered if this was what aging felt like: a series of small betrayals.

In the living room, David was folding his clothes. They'd agreed he would leave tonight, after three years together, after she'd stopped loving him somewhere between the laundry and the taxes, or maybe she never had. He'd been talking about his promotion—corner office, vice president, the corporate bull charging through china shops—and she'd realized she didn't care about his victories or his defeats.

"You forgot this," she said, emerging from the bathroom. In her palm sat a baseball, scuffed and heirloom, from his collegiate pitching days. He'd told her about it on their first date. The story had been charming then. Now it felt like mythology for someone she'd never actually known.

He took it without meeting her eyes. "Thanks."

The silence between them had accumulated like sediment, layer upon layer of unsaid things, until there was no room left for breath.

"Your mother called," he said, setting the baseball in his open duffel. "She invited me to Thanksgiving."

The past was a country you couldn't return to. "She doesn't know yet."

"I know." He shouldered the bag. "I won't tell her."

This was his cruelty: his decency. He would bear the weight of her secrets even now, even after she'd asked him to leave. She watched him walk to the door, the person she'd once thought she'd grow old with, the person whose gray hairs she'd once pulled from his collar with tender fingers.

"David."

He turned, palm on the doorknob, not quite hopeful anymore. Not quite anything.

"The story about the baseball," she said. "The perfect game you threw your senior year."

"What about it?"

"You never told me what happened after. You always stopped at the last out."

His expression shifted—something complicated, almost like relief. "We lost in regionals. I choked. Walked four batters in a row. Coach benched me and I never pitched again."

He opened the door. "I think I'd rather be the person who threw the perfect game."

After he left, Margot sat on the sofa and pressed her palm against the cushion where he'd sat. The fabric was still warm. Some days she thought the bravest thing was staying. Some days she knew it was leaving. Most days, she couldn't tell the difference.