Chlorine and Memory

The pool was nearly empty at this hour—just the distant lap of water against tile, the chlorine sting in my nostrils. I'd been coming here every Tuesday for three months, ever since Marcus left. Something about the weightlessness made the grief bearable for an hour.

I floated on my back, staring at the ceiling where fluorescent lights flickered like dying stars. **Swimming** had become my church, the water my confessional. Here, in the blue silence, I didn't have to pretend I was fine.

An **orange** rolled across the deck chair beside my towel—a gift from the elderly woman who always sat in the corner, knitting scarves for children who'd grown and moved away. "Vitamin C, dear," she'd said with a knowing smile, pressing it into my palm like a sacrament. I hadn't eaten it. Just watched it slowly oxidize in the sunlight, the peel growing spotted and soft, like something that had waited too long.

From the poolside television, the crack of a bat echoed through the cavernous space. **Baseball**—Marcus's religion, his altar, his Sunday morning devotion. I'd spent seven years pretending to care about ERAs and RBIs, seven years of plastic seats and overpriced beer and his voice rising with every pitch. In the end, he'd chosen the game over our anniversary dinner. Some seventh-inning stretch.

I surfaced, shaking water from my ears. The orange sat where I'd left it, a small surrender to decay. On screen, a player rounded third, his future suspended between bases. I thought about how easy it is to keep moving forward until you realize you've been running in circles all along.

The elderly woman caught my eye across the empty pool. She held up her knitting—a tiny sweater, the color of sunrise. I peeled the orange at last, its juice sharp and bright against the taste of chlorine and loss. Some things, I realized, can still be sweet even after they've begun to spoil.