What We Leave Behind

The papaya sat rotting on Elena's desk for three days before anyone noticed. Not that anyone would have said anything — grief gave you certain privileges in the office. Peter's empty cubicle was like a phantom limb, the absence aching and impossible to ignore.

Outside, the apartment complex's pool glimmered through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Elena had spent countless lunch breaks there with Peter, dangling their legs in the water while he complained about his divorce and she pretended not to be in love with him. Now the pool looked sterile, a mouth that had swallowed something precious.

"You should eat something."

Elena looked up. It was Marcus from Accounting — Peter's friend, the one who'd introduced them at the Christmas party three years ago. He placed a container of spinach salad on her desk. The kind with seeds, healthy and earnest and completely inappropriate.

"I'm not hungry."

"The funeral's tomorrow. His ex is bringing her new boyfriend. You need your strength."

Elena laughed, dark and hollow. "You think I'm worried about Karen's new boyfriend? Marcus, I wasn't even important enough to be the other woman. I was just the friend who brought him papayas because he said they reminded him of Costa Rica. The friend who listened. Always the fucking friend."

The office cat, a morose tabby named Sheila who wandered freely through the open-plan workspace, jumped onto Elena's desk and sniffed the rotting papaya. Peter had secretly fed her treats from his lunch every day. Now she rubbed her head against Elena's hand, indifferent to human sorrow, living entirely in the present tense.

"He knew," Marcus said softly. "About how you felt. He told me, after the Christmas party last year. He said you deserved better than a man who was still broken from his marriage."

Elena stared at him. The air in the office felt suddenly thin.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because you've been staring at that papaya like it's a grenade for three days, and Peter would hate seeing you punish yourself for his cowardice." Marcus gestured to the rotting fruit. "Also, that thing's starting to smell."

Elena picked up the papaya, walked to the window, and looked down at the pool one last time. Then she dumped it in the trash and sat back down at her desk, opened the container of spinach salad, and took a bite. It tasted like earth and beginning again.