Wild at the Wrong Time

Elena stood at the kitchen counter, chopping spinach with rhythmic precision. The knife flashed through the leaves—green, green, green—like some meditation on the life she'd chosen. Outside, lightning fractured the November sky, illuminating for a split second the fox that had been coming to her garden for three weeks now.

"You're still making that spinach shit?" Mark called from the living room. His voice carried that particular note of disappointment she'd grown fluent in over twelve years of marriage. "We talked about this. The doctor said—"

"The doctor said my iron's fine, Mark."

"Still." Heavy footfalls. "Why can't you make something normal?"

She watched the fox through the window again—burnt orange against winter-brown grass, wild and unapologetic. It had eaten every last Brussels sprout from her garden last week. She should have been angry. Instead, she felt something like admiration.

Mark appeared in the doorway, tie already loosened, eyes already avoiding hers. "Big meeting tomorrow. Could use actual food."

"This is actual food."

"You know what I mean."

Another flash of lightning. The fox met her gaze through the glass, something ancient and knowing in its eyes. And suddenly—so suddenly it made her knees weak—Elena understood. She wasn't sad anymore. She wasn't tired. She was just

done.

"The fox ate your Brussels sprouts," she said, setting down the knife.

"What?"

"The fox. He comes every night now. He takes what he wants."

Mark laughed, but it sounded wrong—like he knew something was shifting and couldn't name it. "You're letting a fox eat our vegetables?"

"I'm not letting him do anything. He just takes it."

"So we'll build a fence."

"No," Elena said, and the word felt like lightning in her throat. "No fence."

She turned off the stove. The spinach sat there in the pan, wilting, turning into something unrecognizable. Something nobody wanted.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going outside," she said, already reaching for her coat. "To feed the fox."