What Remains After the Barking Stops

The papaya sat on the counter for three days before I noticed it had turned to mush. Marina had bought it, excited about some tropical juice recipe she'd never make. Now it was just a brown, soft thing collapsing under its own weight, much like everything else in this apartment.

I stood at the sink letting the water run cold over my hands, watching it swirl down the drain like time I couldn't get back. The iphone on the counter glowed with her last messages—unread, voicemail building up like sediment in my throat. I'd stopped checking them four days ago, around the same time I stopped sleeping.

"You're being dramatic," her sister had said when she came to collect Marina's things. "People get divorced every day."

People don't lose their dog and their marriage in the same week, I wanted to say. But Buster wasn't just a dog. He was the witness to everything—our first fights, our make-up sex, the nights we sat on the floor eating takeout and promising we'd never become our parents. Now the leash still hung by the door, empty as the rest of my life.

I reached into the refrigerator and found the spinach Marina had bought for salads she never made. The bag was slimy with decay, leaves turning to black liquid. I stared at it, this small domestic failure, and felt something crack open in my chest. The spinach wasn't supposed to survive her leaving.

Outside, someone walked their dog past the window. I heard the familiar rhythm of nails on pavement, the jingle of tags, and I had to slide down the cabinets to the floor. The iphone buzzed—another notification I couldn't bring myself to read.

The papaya continued its slow collapse on the counter. The water kept running. Somewhere in this city, Marina was probably buying fresh fruit, starting over, while I sat on my kitchen floor surrounded by everything that was supposed to be ours and was now just evidence that I hadn't known how to keep any of it.

I turned off the water. The silence was worse than the noise.