What the Dog Knew

The golden retriever lay on the Persian rug, its head resting between its paws, watching Elena pack. Barnaby had always been perceptive like that—sensing tremors in the household's foundation before the humans acknowledged them.

"You're leaving because of spinach," Marco said from the doorway, his voice holding that particular note of male incredulity that had worn Elena down over twelve years of marriage. "Because I forgot to buy spinach."

Elena paused, a cable knit sweater in her hands. "I'm leaving because you forgot to buy spinach the same week you forgot our anniversary, forgot to call when you stayed late at the office, and forgot that you're not twenty-five anymore with endless time to make things right."

The irony wasn't lost on her—that she was packing into a cable knit sweater Marco had given her three years ago, back when he still tried. Back when he still looked at her with something resembling hunger instead of the comfortable indifference of roommates.

"The dog needs to be fed," Marco said.

"I fed him. I also paid the cable bill, called your mother about her surgery, and watered the peace lily you've been letting die for six months."

Marco pushed himself off the doorframe and crossed the room. When he reached for her hand, his palm was warm and familiar, and God help her, she almost leaned into it. Almost remembered how those hands had felt on her waist in a crowded Brooklyn apartment, before ambition and mortgages and the slow erosion of intimacy had turned them into people who shared a bed but not secrets.

"Elena—"

"Don't." She pulled away. "Barnaby will miss you. He's the only one who will."

The dog lifted his head at his name, tail thumping a hopeful rhythm against the floor. Elena knelt to scratch his ears, her vision blurring. "Goodbye, sweet boy," she whispered.

Outside, a car service waited. The future was terrifying and uncertain and absolutely necessary. She'd forgotten who she was somewhere between grocery lists and dinner parties, between being Marco's wife and being nobody at all.

The spinach in the refrigerator would rot. The cable would be cut. Eventually, Barnaby would stop waiting for her by the door. Some endings were messy and incomplete, and that was the point—they were endings anyway.