Chlorine and Unspoken Things

The orange slice floated in Miranda's drink like a sad sun, slowly disintegrating in the cheap vodka. She watched it from the lounge chair, wishing she could dissolve too—just peel away layer after layer until nothing remained but the essential bitterness.

'It's pathetic,' Elena had said earlier, standing by the pool's edge in her ridiculous wide-brimmed hat, the same one she'd worn to Miranda's mother's funeral. 'Watching him like that. He's not coming back, Miri.'

Now Elena was swimming laps in the deep end, her strokes aggressive, each one an accusation. They hadn't spoken since. Twenty years of friendship, and it had taken one man— Elena's brother, Miranda's husband—to dismantle it completely. Some people believed time healed all wounds. Miranda believed time just made you an expert at pretending.

Across the pool, Richard was laughing with someone new. A young woman, maybe twenty-five, with hair that hadn't yet been thinned by grief or chemotherapy or the slow erosion of hope. She wasn't wearing a hat. She probably didn't own one for funerals.

The pool lights flickered on automatically as twilight approached, turning the water an artificial blue that made everything look simultaneously sharper and dreamlike. Miranda stood up, her cocktail forgotten. The orange slice had dissolved completely, leaving only a faint residue of pulp against the glass.

She walked to the edge where Elena was still swimming, fighting the water as if she could drown her own guilt in it. Miranda sat on the concrete, dangling her feet in the cool water, and waited.

When Elena finally noticed her, she trod water, breathing hard. 'I didn't mean what I said earlier.'

'I know,' Miranda said. 'You meant what you didn't say.'

Elena swam to the edge and pulled herself up, water streaming from her hair. 'He was my brother too.'

'I know.' Miranda stared at the ripples expanding around Elena's shoulders. 'But he was my husband, El. And he left us both. The difference is, you can still call him.'

Elena climbed out and sat beside her, dripping onto the concrete. Neither woman spoke. The orange-tinted sunset faded to purple, then gray. Somewhere in the distance, a phone buzzed with a text message neither of them would answer.