Chlorine and Goodbyes

The pool was empty at 7 AM, which was exactly why Elena chose this hour. She adjusted her wide-brimmed hat against the merciless Mexican sun and swallowed her vitamin D supplement with lukewarm hotel water. Dr. Martinez had insisted she needed it after the miscarriage, as if a pill could fix what her body had refused to hold.

"Beautiful morning for a swim."

Elena jumped. A man in his fifties stood at the pool's edge, wearing a faded hotel staff uniform. He was balancing a tray of cleaning supplies.

"I didn't hear you approach," she said, clutching her towel tighter.

"My apologies, miss." He set down his supplies and pointed toward the bougainvillea bushes. "The cat returns."

A scrawny tabby emerged from the flowers, eyeing them both before padding to the man's feet and winding around his ankles.

"She knows who feeds her," he said, scratching behind the cat's ears. "Names her Lucky. Not very creative, but she answers to it."

"You see her every morning?"

"Every morning for three years." He straightened up. "My wife and I, we came here on our anniversary when I still worked construction. She died two years ago. Cancer." He said it simply, without weight. "I asked for a job here afterward. Something about being where she was happiest."

Elena's throat tightened. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We had thirty years." He gestured toward the hotel towers. "Your husband, he sleeps late?"

"He's not my husband anymore. We came to finalize the divorce paperwork, but he spent yesterday at the bar instead." Elena hadn't meant to say it. The words just fell out. "I keep taking these vitamins, even though there's no baby coming anymore. It's like I'm preparing for a life I don't have."

The old man considered her. "The water's best this time of day. No one to see you floating between who you were and who you're becoming."

Elena stood up, removed her hat, and stepped toward the pool's edge. The water was impossibly blue, catching the first rays of dawn.

"You coming back tomorrow?" he asked.

She dove into the cool silence, swimming toward the far end where the sun hit the water, finally ready to surface.