What We Ate That Morning

The papaya sat on the counter like a small orange indictment. Sarah had brought it home yesterday—fresh from the market, she'd said, her fingers brushing against mine in that way she used to, like she still wanted to be touched. Now it sat there growing soft, watched by the cat who sat on the refrigerator with all the judgment of a creature who'd seen this coming before either of us had.

I poured water into a glass. My hand shook. Just a tremor, really, but I set the glass down hard and watched the ripples settle, trying to remember when I'd stopped sleeping through the night.

"You're leaving," I said. It wasn't a question.

Sarah stood in the doorway, one hand in her hair. She'd cut it last week—short, practical, the kind of cut that says something's about to change. I'd always loved her hair long, the way it fell across her face when she laughed. The last time she'd laughed, I couldn't remember.

"It's not just about us," she said. "It's the way everything's arranged. The whole fucking pyramid scheme of it. Marriage, mortgage, the slow erosion into people we promised we'd never become. I look at you and I don't know who's looking back."

The cat jumped down and walked to her water bowl. We watched her drink, both of us postponing what couldn't be postponed much longer.

"I still know who you are," I said, and it was almost true.

"You know who I was."

She walked to the counter, sliced the papaya with a knife I'd given her three years ago for our anniversary. The flesh fell away in orange wedges, smelling faintly of summer and something else—something like endings. She ate one piece, then another.

"You want some?" she asked, and for a second it was like before, like the small intimacies that had held us together could hold us still.

"No," I said. "I'm good."

She nodded, finished the fruit, and walked out the door. The cat looked at me, then went back to sleep. I stood there with my water glass and the small, stubborn conviction that some things end before you're ready to let them go.