Breath Hold

The lake at dawn was the color of old iron, the surface broken only by Elena's arms cutting through water. She'd taken up swimming six months after David left, seeking something that demanded total presence. When you're underwater, holding your breath until your lungs burn, you cannot simultaneously enumerate your failures as a wife and mother.

She surfaced, gasping. The retreat center's kitchen staff would be laying out breakfast now — probably something involving organic spinach and lectures about gut health. Elena was forty-three, the youngest VP at her firm, and she'd forgotten how to want things that weren't achievements.

"You're up early."

Elena turned in the water. A man stood on the dock — Marcus from Accounting, the one who'd given that presentation about downward trends yesterday. He was fully dressed, holding a mug.

"Couldn't sleep," she said, treading water. "The beds are terrible."

"That's what they all say." He sat cross-legged. "I saw a bear yesterday."

"A what?"

"A bear. Black bear. Down by the trail." Marcus took a sip of coffee. "I reported it to the front desk. They said I must have seen a dog. But I know what I saw."

Elena swam closer to the dock. The water was cold against her skin.

"They don't believe you," she said.

"No. They don't." He looked out over the lake. "I wonder how many things we see that we're not supposed to, and we just... don't. We edit ourselves."

"Like spinach," Elena said suddenly.

Marcus laughed. "What?"

"My ex-husband. He pretended to hate spinach for years. Ate it anyway, out of politeness, at my parents' house. I only found out after he left that he actually loved it." She treaded water, feeling the weight of something unspoken in her chest. "We performed ourselves for each other. For twelve years."

"And now?" Marcus asked quietly.

"Now I swim." Elena dove again, down into the silvery quiet, where for a few seconds she didn't have to be anything at all. When she surfaced, Marcus was gone, his mug sitting empty on the dock.

Later, over breakfast, she watched him laughing at something. No bear had been reported. No one would believe it anyway. She put spinach on her plate, ate it without hesitation, and wondered what else she'd been pretending not to want.

The water had been cold. It had been real. That was enough.

That night, she booked a trip to Alaska. Not for the bears. For the water.