What the Cat Knew

Maria found herself running at 2 AM through rain-slicked streets, her breath hitching in the cold air. Three weeks after David moved out, sleep still felt like a foreign country she couldn't locate on a map.

The apartment was too quiet without his things, except for the cat—Barnaby, who'd been David's idea, Maria's burden now. Barnaby watched her with those judging yellow eyes from the windowsill as she paced, as if he knew something she didn't.

She'd stopped at a bodega on Seventh, craving anything that felt like a choice she was making for herself. She bought a bag of spinach, thinking she'd cook herself something real. Not takeout. Not whatever leftover grief she'd been swallowing for weeks.

Back in the kitchen, she chopped spinach with rhythmic violence, the knife hitting the cutting board harder than necessary. David had left his favorite hat on the mantel—a gray wool thing that smelled like his cigarettes and that cedar cologne. She'd meant to throw it away. She'd meant to a lot of things.

Barnaby wound around her ankles, purring like a small motor, demanding to be fed. "You're hungry," she said to him. "That's simple. You know what you want."

She wasn't running from David anymore. She was running toward something she couldn't name yet.

The hat sat there in her peripheral vision like a ghost. He'd texted yesterday: Can I come by for the rest of my stuff?

She'd deleted the message without answering.

The spinach sizzled in the pan, garlic and oil making the apartment feel like home for the first time in weeks. Barnaby stared at her from the counter, tail twitching, and Maria realized she was crying—not because she missed David, but because she was finally, finally allowing herself to miss herself.

She dished the food onto a plate, sat on the floor, and let the cat curl against her leg. For the first time since he left, Maria didn't feel like she was waiting for something to begin. She was already in it.