Concrete Paradise

The pool had been empty for weeks, a blue-black mouth waiting to swallow something. Elena sat on its edge with her legs in the dry, drained basin, smoking a cigarette she'd sworn she'd quit. Her hair—still the same auburn cascade that David had loved to bury his face in—now felt like a stranger's adornment.

Behind the screen door, the dog, Buster, scratched at the glass with frantic urgency. He'd been doing this since David left, as if the man might materialize on the other side if Buster made enough noise. Some loyalty, Elena thought. Some fucking devotion.

She'd bought papaya at the farmer's market, something David had always turned his nose up at. Too exotic, he'd said. We're simple people, El. She'd cut it open this morning, the orange flesh weeping juice onto her fingers, and eaten the whole thing standing over the sink while Buster whined at the back door. It tasted like rebellion.

Now she opened the container of spinach she'd also bought, remembering how David would eat it only drenched in ranch dressing, complaining about health food being punishment for being alive. She ate a raw leaf, then another. The bitter metallic taste filled her mouth, clean and uncompromising.

"You're going to make yourself sick," she said aloud, though she wasn't sure if she meant the spinach or the cigarettes or the whole goddamn situation.

Her phone buzzed on the patio table. Her sister. Probably calling to check in, to ask if she was okay, to offer careful words that couldn't possibly touch the void that had taken up residence in Elena's chest.

She let it ring.

The papaya had left sticky residue on her hands. She rinsed them in the empty pool's shallow end, where a few inches of stagnant water remained, reflecting a distorted sky. Her face looked back at her, pale and determined.

"I'm not simple," she whispered to the water. "I was never simple."

Buster had finally given up scratching. He lay in a patch of sunlight near the door, chin on paws, watching her with ancient, patient eyes. Tomorrow she'd drain the pool properly, fill it, learn to swim laps like she'd always threatened to. Tonight she'd finish the spinach, smoke the rest of the pack, and sleep in David's spot of the bed for the first time.

The papaya, at least, had been delicious.