Chlorine and Silence

The condo pool was empty at 2 AM, the water still and black as ink. Maya sat on the edge, her feet dangling in, watching the ripples distort her legs in the harsh underwater light. She'd come here every night since David moved out—since the papers arrived with their neat divisions of assets and careful language about irreconcilable differences.

Their orange tabby, Barnaby, watched from the third-floor balcony, his glowing eyes judging her. David had wanted full custody of the cat. Maya had fought him on it, not because she loved Barnaby—though she did—but because it was the one thing she could refuse him without looking petty in front of the mediator.

The pool lights flickered. Somewhere above, a balcony door slid open.

"You're going to freeze out here."

Maya didn't turn. It was probably that guy from 4B, the one who always wore suits even on weekends. He'd asked her out two weeks ago in the elevator, a clumsy invitation that smelled of desperation and loneliness.

"I'm fine."

"There's a cat staring at you," he said. "Looks hungry."

"He's well-fed. Just observing."

Maya thought about the orange grove they'd visited on their honeymoon, how David had peeled her an orange in the rental car, juice running down her wrist, sticky and sweet in the California heat. She'd thought: this is what marriage would be—small intimacies, shared fruit, the smell of citrus on their skin for days.

Instead, it had been separate bank accounts and conversations about which direction to face the toothbrush holder.

"Do you want to come up?" the man from 4B asked. "I have wine."

Maya pulled her feet from the pool. Water dripped onto the concrete, dark and temporary, gone before she'd even climbed the stairs back to her apartment.

"No thank you," she said.

She let herself into the empty condo. Barnaby wound around her legs, purring. Maya picked him up, buried her face in his fur, and finally let herself cry for the marriage she'd lost, the woman she used to be, and the long winter ahead of learning to be alone.