What Remains in the Fruit Bowl

Marcus stands in the kitchen of the apartment they shared for seven years, watching the papaya soften on the counter. It's been three weeks since Elena left, and the produce rots in stages of abandonment. First the spinach turned slimy in the crisper drawer. Then the orange developed a soft spot that Marcus pressed with his thumb each morning, testing decay like it might tell him something about time.

Her cat, Barnaby, winds around his ankles, miaowing accusations. Marcus inherited him by default — the cat chose him, or maybe just chose not to be uprooted again. The irony isn't lost on him.

The baseball sits on the windowsill where it landed the night they fought about something that wasn't really about baseball at all. That final season. How she stopped coming to his games. How he stopped asking.

He slices the papaya now, its flesh the color of a sunset they watched from a beach in Mexico, before everything between them became a negotiation. The seeds are black and slick, possibilities gone to seed. He eats a piece standing over the sink, because the table feels too large for one.

Barnaby jumps onto the counter, sniffing the fruit. "She's not coming back," Marcus tells him. The words taste like betrayal, even though they're true. He remembers Elena laughing when the cat knocked over her wineglass, the stain on the carpet she'd said they'd get to later. They never did. It's still there, under the rug.

The papaya is overripe, cloying sweet. He throws the rest away.

From the window, he can see the neighborhood kids playing baseball in the park, their shouts carrying through the June humidity. One of them hits a home run. The others cheer.

Marcus washes his plate. He takes the baseball from the windowsill and puts it in the junk drawer. Later, he'll buy spinach. He'll feed the cat. He'll call the landlord about the carpet stain. He'll make new habits in the spaces she left behind.

The orange can wait one more day.