Chlorine & Sunshine

The first time Mark brought up divorce, we were floating in the pool behind the house we'd bought with money we didn't yet have. The water glowed that impossible orange of late summer sunsets, the kind that makes everything feel both beautiful and ending.

I watched our cat, Clementine, padding along the edge of the concrete, her shadow stretching long and distorted across the water. She hated the pool—hated how we disappeared beneath its surface, how we emerged smelling of chemicals. But she loved Mark's old golden retriever, Buster, who lay panting on the lounge chair, his fur already turning that peculiar shade of orange that happens to light-colored dogs who spend too much time in the sun.

"I'm not happy," Mark said, treading water in the deep end. "I haven't been for a while."

The pool had been my idea. Something about children someday, family gatherings, a life we were building. But the children never came, and the family gatherings were just his parents asking when we'd finally sell the place and move somewhere practical.

I dove beneath the surface, holding my breath until my lungs burned. The world went silent and blue-green, muffled and distant. When I broke the surface, gasping, Mark was still watching me with that terrible patient look he'd developed—like he was waiting for a house to settle, for a foundation to crack.

"What about the dog?" I asked, wiping chlorinated water from my eyes. "Who gets Buster?"

He didn't answer. Just floated there, arms spread, staring up at the sky that was rapidly darkening from orange to purple to something else entirely.

Clementine approached the edge and dipped one paw in, testing. She pulled back quickly, shaking droplets onto the concrete. Even the cat knew better than to dive into something she couldn't touch the bottom of.

"You can't just end it," I said. "Not like this. Not in the middle of August."

"Summer's almost over," he said quietly.

I swam to the shallow end and stood, the water waist-high. Buster lifted his head, thumped his tail against the cushion. The orange light had faded to gray. There would be other sunsets, other pools, other houses. But not this one. Never again this one.