Vitamin Winter

Elena stood at the kitchen counter, the fluorescent light humming above her like a dying insect. She peeled the papaya with surgical precision, its bright orange flesh bleeding onto the cutting board. Robert hated papaya. Had always said it tasted like old pennies and regret.

Three months since he'd walked out. Eighty-seven days of learning to sleep in the center of the bed, of not reaching for someone who wasn't there.

The **hat** sat on the coatrack by the door—his fedora, the one he'd worn to their wedding, the one he'd doffed with such theatrical flourish whenever he wanted to charm roomful of strangers. Elena had considered throwing it out a dozen times. Instead, she'd started leaving little things in it: grocery receipts, hair ties, once even a whole clementine that had rotted into a science experiment before she remembered it.

Her therapist said she was processing. Her sister said she was wallowing. Elena couldn't tell the difference anymore.

She popped a **vitamin** D supplement—her third today, despite the bottle's warning to take only one. The doctor had said her levels were critically low, that her body was starving for sunlight even though summer was officially two weeks away. She felt like a plant that had forgotten how to photosynthesize, all her energy going toward maintaining the appearance of functioning.

"Your dad left his hat," her mother had said on the phone that morning, like it was new information. Like Elena didn't see it every single day, a silent accusation hanging from a hook.

"I know," Elena had replied, and left it at that.

The papaya slices looked beautiful against the white plate. She took a bite anyway, let the weird musky sweetness coat her tongue, thought about how some things were acquired tastes and some things were just things you forced yourself to swallow because you'd convinced yourself they were good for you.

She missed him. She hated him. She couldn't tell which feeling was real anymore.

The doorbell rang.

Elena stared at it like it might bite her. No one ever came over anymore. She'd become the kind of person friends stopped calling, the kind who declined invitations until they stopped coming.

She opened the door.

Robert stood there, looking somehow older and smaller than she remembered. He was wearing that **hat**.

"I came back for my—"

"Take it," she said.

He reached for the hat, then stopped. His eyes darted to the papaya on the counter behind her.

"You still buy those."

"I like them now."

"You never used to."

"People change."

Robert nodded, like this was news he'd expected but hadn't wanted confirmed. He took his hat, turned it in his hands.

"I'm taking a job in Seattle."

"Okay."

"Elena—"

"Robert."

They stood there. The papaya on the counter was starting to brown where the air touched it. The vitamin bottle sat beside her sink, a monument to all the ways she couldn't fix herself.

"You look tired," he said.

"I'm fine."

"Your skin—you're not going outside. You need—"

"**Vitamin** D," she finished. "I know."

He nodded again, like this too was confirmation of something he'd suspected. Like he needed to believe she was falling apart without him, that his leaving had consequences beyond his own guilt.

"Goodbye, Elena."

"Goodbye, Robert."

She closed the door before she could see him walk away. The papaya was still on her plate. She took another bite, forced herself to chew, forced herself to taste it.

It tasted like papaya. It tasted like papaya and nothing else.

She swallowed and went to open all the windows.