Cable Night

The cable guy was late, which meant Marcus would miss the first half of the game again. He stood by the window, watching the pool across the street. The water glittered under the security lights, and he could see a lone swimmer—a woman doing laps, her arms cutting through the water with desperate precision. He imagined she was drowning something in that pool. A memory. A marriage. Maybe she'd just found out she was infertile, or that her husband had been sleeping with his assistant for three years.

Marcus laughed at himself. He'd been projecting onto strangers since his own divorce finalized six months ago. Every woman in a grocery store became his ex-wife. Every couple holding hands became evidence that everyone else was happy except him.

The cable guy finally showed up at 7:15—a kid named Tyler who couldn't be older than twenty-two. Tyler crawled under the TV stand, his movements sluggish. "Fucked up cable," Tyler muttered. "These old connections, they corrode. You gotta replace them or you get nothing but static."

"Yeah," Marcus said. "That's what she said."

Tyler froze, then slowly slid out from under the TV. "Who?"

"My ex. Last day of counseling. Said we were corroded. Said we couldn't carry a signal anymore."

Tyler stared at him, then shrugged and went back to work.

After Tyler left, Marcus heated up a frozen dinner. Spinach and ricotta ravioli—the kind his ex used to make from scratch when they were still trying. When they still believed that if they just did everything right, ate organic, communicated effectively, made love on Tuesdays, the weight of their accumulated disappointments wouldn't crush them.

The spinach tasted like cardboard. He watched the TV, which finally worked, but the game was already a blowout. He found himself watching the pool instead. The woman was still swimming, lap after lap, her movements hypnotic. He wondered what she was drowning in.

Then she stopped. She pulled herself out of the water, dripping and alone, and sat on the edge with her face in her hands.

Marcus almost went outside. Almost crossed the street to ask if she was okay. But he didn't. He finished his spinach dinner alone in his apartment, watching another channel come in crystal clear while the world outside stayed blurry and distant.