What the Mirror Forgot

Elena stared at the silver strand in her brush like it was a betrayal. At forty-two, she'd begun counting lost hairs the way some people counted calories. Each one felt like a small surrender.

The papaya sat on the counter, ripe and waiting. David had brought it home yesterday—unusual for him. Their marriage had become a series of unusual gestures lately. Cooking when he never cooked. Buying flowers without occasion. The vitamin supplements he'd started taking, the gym membership he actually used.

She'd found the hair on his scarf. Not hers. Long, dark, wound around the wool like a claim.

The fox appeared at the edge of their garden that morning—sleek, rust-colored, watching her with knowing eyes. It reminded her of David's new assistant, Sienna. Younger. Sharp. The way David said her name—Sienna—like it was a flavor he'd been craving.

Elena sliced the papaya, juice running sticky over her fingers. The sweetness tasted like deception. She swallowed her vitamin with the same grim resignation she'd felt since finding that hair, since noticing how David's phone always screen-down when he showered.

The goldfish bowl had been her mother's, now gathering dust on the windowsill. She'd forgotten to feed them for weeks. They swam in their cloudy eternity, blinking their stupid eyes, living and dying in cycles she couldn't bother to track.

David came in, smell of expensive cologne and someone else's detergent. "Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

She watched the fox turn and disappear into the woods.

"The papaya's sweet," she said.

He smiled, eyes not quite meeting hers. "Glad you like it."

The goldfish broke the surface, gasping. Elena fed them finally, let the flakes drift down like snow, and wondered if love was just the habit of not leaving, or if some marriages were just arrangements between two people too afraid to be alone.

"David?" she said.

"Yes?"

She touched the silver hair in her brush, then let it fall into the trash.

"Nothing."

Some endings, she decided, were just beginnings that hadn't announced themselves yet.