What the Palm Reader Didn't Say

The hotel pool was empty at 3 AM, its surface still except for the trembling reflection of palm trees swaying in the wind. Elena sat on the edge, her feet in the water, nursing a glass of cheap merlot. She'd come to Key West to forget Mark, but forgetting proved harder than the palm reader had promised.

"You'll meet someone tall, dark, and faithful," the woman had said, tracing the lifeline on Elena's left palm. She hadn't mentioned that Elena would first have to lose the person she'd spent seven years building a life with. She hadn't mentioned that faithfulness didn't guarantee staying.

A golden retriever trotted toward her from the shadows, tail wagging hopefully. No collar. Just a stray, looking for someone to need him. Elena poured some wine into her palm and let him lap it up, his rough tongue against her skin almost like affection.

"You're better off without me," Mark had said, his bags already packed by the door. They'd fought about something ridiculous—whose turn it was to buy organic spinach, of all things. Their marriage had unraveled over groceries and silence and the way they'd stopped reaching for each other in bed.

The dog settled beside her, chin on her bare knee, and Elena felt herself crack open. She cried into the dog's golden fur, releasing everything she'd been holding in since the day Mark left: the anger, the hollow ache, the terrible realization that she didn't know who she was without being someone's wife.

The palm reader had gotten one thing right, though. Elena did meet someone tall, dark, and faithful that night. He had four legs, a wet nose, and a way of looking at her like she was exactly who he'd been waiting for.

She finished her wine and stood up, the dog following. "Come on then," she said, and he did, all the way to her rental car, where she'd later discover he liked car rides almost as much as he liked the spinach salad she ordered from room service when they finally made it upstairs.

Some endings, she decided, were just disguised beginnings in fur coats.