What the Dog Ate

Margaret stood at the kitchen counter, staring at the papaya like it was an accusation. It sat there, orange-fleshed and immodest, dripping onto the cutting board. David had brought it home yesterday—that same David who now slept in the guest room, their separation less than a week old.

She considered making a smoothie. Something healthy. Something that said, I am taking care of myself now. She added spinach from the crisper drawer, watching her hands in the reflection of the window. They looked like her mother's hands. That was the thing about forty—suddenly you were inhabiting a body you recognized only in fragments, borrowed features from dead relatives.

Their golden retriever, Buster, nudged her calf. He was sympathetic to moods, had been following her from room to room since David's departure. She scratched behind his ears, watching papaya juice pool on the counter.

The pool. That was where they'd first met—swimming laps at the community center, Margaret trying to outrun a divorce she knew was coming, David offering pointers on her form. Three years later, she was the one leaving, though she couldn't have said why. Not exactly. Sometimes marriages dissolved like sugar in water; you watched it happen and still couldn't explain how.

She dropped the spinach into the blender. Buster whimpered, sensing her hesitation.

"It's just fruit," she told him. "It's just a goddamn fruit."

But it wasn't. It was David's attempt—clumsy, unprecedented—to reach across the widening gap between them. Papaya. He'd never bought papaya in twelve years of marriage. Until three days ago, standing in their kitchen with that hopeful, terrified look, holding the fruit like a peace offering, like a question.

She hadn't answered. She'd just taken the papaya and set it on the counter.

Outside, the April rain continued. Margaret turned off the blender and ate the papaya raw, standing over the sink, juice running down her chin. Buster watched, head cocked, waiting for what would come next. She wondered if David was swimming now, if he was still going to the pool at 6 AM, or if he'd abandoned that too, letting the routines of their marriage dissolve along with everything else.

The papaya tasted like forgiveness. She wasn't ready for that yet.