The Wellness Check

Maya arranged the spinach leaves with surgical precision, dark green fissures against white ceramic. This was what passed for intimacy now—breakfast at 7 AM, both of them pretending this was normal. Marcus sat across from her, his thumb already scrolling on his iPhone, the blue light washing out his features in the gray dawn of their Chicago apartment.

'You're taking your vitamin?' she asked, not really caring.

'Yeah. Already did.' He didn't look up. 'We have that meeting with the divorce mediator at noon.'

The word hung between them like smoke. Six years together, ending in administrative meetings and asset division. She watched him drink his water, his throat moving with each gulp, and tried to remember when she'd last wanted to touch him.

'Marcus.' He finally looked at her, really looked at her, over the rim of the glass. 'Remember when we drove to Michigan that weekend? We got caught in the rain and had to stay in that terrible motel?'

'Yeah.' A ghost of a smile. 'The one with the vending machine that only sold chips and vitamin supplements.'

'I knew then,' she said quietly. 'I thought—that's it. This is the person.' She pushed her spinach away, her appetite gone. 'When did that change?'

Marcus set his glass down carefully. Water pooled at the base on the table. 'Maybe it didn't. Maybe we just grew into people who needed different things.' His iPhone buzzed on the table—work, always work—but he didn't pick it up. 'You need someone who sees you, Maya. Who's actually here.' He gestured vaguely at himself, at the phone, at the life they'd built together that neither of them wanted anymore.

'So this is—it?'

'This is mercy,' he said, and the terrible thing was he believed it.

She nodded once, stood up, and began clearing their plates. The spinach was already wilting.