What the Cat Knows

The gallery was white walls and pretension. Sarah stood before a massive steel bull sculpture, its horns lowered mid-charge, frozen in violence that would never land. Sarah touched her temple where her hair had started silvering at forty-two, thinking about how she used to find that energy intoxicating.

"You always did like the dangerous ones," Marcus said from behind her.

She didn't turn. Her ex-husband's voice was like gravel in a blender, still familiar after three years apart.

"Some of us learn," she said.

Their dog, Buster, had been the tether between them. Marcus got the apartment; Sarah got Buster in the divorce. Now the golden retriever's muzzle was white, his hips stiff with arthritis. He slept at the foot of Sarah's bed instead of pacing at the door, waiting for footsteps that never returned.

"How's Buster?"

"Old," she said. "Which is more than I can say for us."

Marcus laughed—that bark she'd once found charming, now just abrasive. "Came to see the show. Ana talked about it for weeks."

Sarah remembered the long dark hair she'd found in Marcus's car two months before she left. Not hers.

"The cat went with you, didn't she?"

"Yeah, though she spends more time at the neighbor's."

Sarah didn't mention that Luna showed up at her window every Tuesday. The cat knew where the real home was.

"How's the practice?"

"Busy. Lots of divorces." He shifted, the bull looming between them. "You seeing anyone?"

"No," she said. "I've got enough to manage."

Their daughter Sophie had won a goldfish at the spring carnival. The bag sat on Sarah's kitchen counter, a tiny orange life swimming in circles. Sophie had named it Champion. Sarah had found herself buying the tank, filtration system, water conditioner—sinking hundreds into a fish that cost fifty cents.

"That's the thing about goldfish," Marcus said. "They die, you replace them, kid learns about mortality."

Sarah finally turned to look at him. The lines around his eyes, the way he still stood like he was bracing for impact, always charging, never questioning whether the direction was right.

"Not everyone needs to keep charging," she said. "Some of us prefer the bowl."

Marcus looked like she'd slapped him. The bull between them was silent, its violence contained in steel, harmless as long as you didn't get too close.

"Luna's been sleeping on my fire escape," she said, watching something crack in his composure. "Every Tuesday."

He didn't answer. The bull's horns pointed toward nothing.

"I need to check on Champion," Sarah said, and walked out of the gallery into the evening air, which smelled like rain and second chances she wasn't going to take.