What the Lines Know

The prenatal vitamins sat on the counter like a promise I couldn't keep. Marco reached past them for the coffee filter, his hand brushing my wrist—his skin warm, mine cold. We'd stopped talking about the treatments three months ago, around the time the dog started sleeping in the hallway between our bedrooms instead of at the foot of our bed.

"You're up early," he said, not meeting my eyes.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Me neither."

Barnaby, our golden retriever, thumped his tail against the floorboards. He'd been doing that lately—this rhythmic, patient thumping whenever the silence between us stretched too thin. Like he was keeping time, measuring the erosion.

Marco poured coffee into two mugs. "I have that conference in Palm Springs next week."

"Right."

"You should come."

I looked at him then. Really looked. The new lines around his mouth, the way his shoulders curved forward like he was carrying something invisible. We used to read each other's palms in bed, drunk on cheap wine and younger than we felt, tracing the life lines and heart lines like they were maps to somewhere we hadn't been yet. Now his hands were strangers to me.

"What would we do there?" I asked.

He set my coffee on the counter. "Sit by the pool. Walk Barnaby on the trails. Pretend we're people who still know how to be together."

The vitamin bottle caught the morning light. I swallowed one without water.

"I'll think about it," I said.

Marco nodded, already turning away. Barnaby abandoned his post in the doorway to follow him, and I stood alone in the kitchen with the coffee and the quiet and the terrible, patient hope that refused to die.