What the Mirror Remembers

The spinach salad sat untouched on her desk, leaves already wilting in the fluorescent office light. Sarah pressed her forehead against the cool window of her thirty-fourth floor office, watching the baseball game unfold in the park below—tiny figures moving across a diamond she couldn't possibly reach from here.

She thought about David's hat. The worn Dodgers cap he'd worn through their fifteen years of marriage, now sitting on the passenger seat of his car wherever he was. Somewhere not here. He'd left it behind when he moved out three weeks ago, along with his toothbrush and half the photographs.

The water cooler bubbled behind her. She'd been crying in the bathroom again—her third time today. Nobody noticed, or if they did, they were too polite to mention it. Office politics required a delicate dance: maintain composure, meet deadlines, pretend your life wasn't dissolving like sugar in hot water.

"Sarah?"

She turned. Marcus from Accounting, holding a manila folder. He looked concerned.

"I'm fine," she said automatically.

"You've got—you know." He gestured to his own teeth.

She wiped spinach from her front tooth with her pinky, feeling suddenly naked. This was what David used to do. Point it out gently, laugh, kiss her afterward. The intimacy of small embarrassments shared.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"The Fisher merger," Marcus said, handing over the folder. "They're moving up the deadline. Friday."

Friday. Their anniversary. She'd forgotten until this moment.

Below, the baseball game continued. Someone hit a home run. The crowd roared. In her pocket, her phone vibrated—David, probably. Or maybe her mother. Or the empty space where her notifications used to mean something.

She watched a pigeon land on the windowsill, feathers ruffling in the wind. It pecked at something invisible, then flew away. Everything left. Everything moved on.

"Friday," she repeated, testing the word like a stone in her mouth. "Okay. Friday."

The spinach on her desk was completely wilted now. She threw it away and got back to work.