What We Leave Behind

The papaya sat on the counter for three days after Marcus died, its skin turning from green to angry yellow, a slow-rotting monument to his last trip to the grocery store. I couldn't bring myself to touch it, let alone throw it away. It felt like the last living thing in our apartment that still carried his fingerprint on it.

His cat, Jupiter, had taken to sleeping on top of the refrigerator, staring down at me with those judgmental yellow eyes whenever I entered the kitchen. We'd never liked each other—Jupiter and me. Marcus was the buffer, the friend who'd bridged the gap between his neurotic artist and his practical lawyer. Now there was no bridge. Just distance.

"You should cut it up," Sarah said when she came over with wine and sympathy she didn't really feel. She and Marcus had never gotten along either. "It's just fruit."

"It's not just fruit," I said, and we both knew I wasn't talking about the papaya anymore.

The truth was, Marcus and I hadn't been speaking when he died. Six weeks of cold war over something so stupid I could barely articulate it now without feeling like an idiot. He'd borrowed money without asking. I'd said things about his sobriety I couldn't take back. Friendships don't usually explode over one thing; they erode, slowly, like water wearing down stone, until one day there's nothing left but sand.

That night, Jupiter finally descended from the refrigerator and pawed at my leg, meowing that pathetic, demanding meow that had always annoyed me. I scooped him up—something Marcus used to do constantly, carrying that cat around like an infant—and held him while he purred against my chest. The vibration felt like forgiveness I didn't deserve.

I cut open the papaya the next morning. It was overripe, soft and yielding under my knife, bleeding orange. I ate it standing at the counter where Marcus had stood six days earlier, alive and annoyed about the price of tropical fruit in February. It tasted like memory and regret and something like beginning again, however badly, however slowly, with only a judgmental cat to witness the attempt.