Tropical Decay

The papaya sat on the white marble counter, its skin freckled with brown like age spots on a hand Elena used to hold. She'd bought it at the market yesterday, drawn to its perfume of fermented sweetness, the same way she'd been drawn to Richard twenty years ago—promising something exotic and transformative that ultimately just rotted on the shelf.

"You're going to let it spoil," Richard said, appearing in the kitchen doorway. His skin glistened from swimming, that morning ritual he'd adopted since arriving at this rental villa in Costa Rica, as if the ocean could wash away the accumulated residue of their marriage.

"I'll cut it up later."

"Later." He tasted the word like something bitter. "Everything is later with you now."

He crossed to the refrigerator, retrieved the spinach she'd purchased for the salads she never made. The bag was already wilting, condensation clouding the plastic. "Remember when we used to cook? When we'd actually eat together instead of grabbing whatever's quickest?"

"We have padel at three," she said, though she had no intention of going. The sport was his latest obsession, a way to fill the hours they used to spend talking.

"Right. Padel." He slammed the spinach onto the counter. "Because hitting a ball around with strangers is somehow more important than figuring out why we can't look at each other anymore."

"You're the one who's always swimming away from everything."

"I'm swimming toward something, Elena. Anything but this."

The papaya between them softened in the heat, its sweet scent thickening the air. She remembered buying it, how she'd thought: this time, we'll actually enjoy it together. Just like she'd thought when she booked the villa, when she'd agreed to this trip, when she'd said yes to him in that garden two decades ago.

She picked up a knife, sliced through the fruit's black-spotted skin. Inside, it was perfect—bright orange seeds like constellations, flesh the color of sunrise. The knife caught on something hard.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Richard asked.

"No," she said, though the first bite was already fermenting on her tongue, "it's exactly what I thought it would be."