Dead Men Don't Swim

Elena had taken everything else—the house, the savings, the best years of his thirties. But she left Brutus, the ancient golden retriever with hips like rusted hinges and breath that could curdle milk from across the room.

Marcus stood in the backyard of what used to be their home, watching the dog navigate the pool deck with painful deliberation. Above them, the bull statue—some kitsch Elena had bought in Tuscany during their last good year—loomed with stone testicles and an expression of frozen triumph. Marcus hated that bull. He'd hated it even before he learned Elena had paid three thousand euros for it, money that could have been a down payment on their future.

He remembered swimming in this pool with her, the summer after the promotion. The market was running like a bull then, money multiplying in accounts they checked together over morning coffee. She'd float on her back, nipples breaking the surface like dolphins, talking about babies and timing. Marcus had believed her. He always believed her, even when she started coming home late smelling of cologne that wasn't his.

Brutus whined, a sound like tearing canvas, and lowered himself onto Marcus's foot. The dog was the only thing left that remembered them as a couple, and even Brutus's loyalty had conditions. He needed insulin now. The vet bill would be twelve hundred dollars this month.

Marcus should have walked away weeks ago. But he kept coming back under the pretense of checking on the dog, though really he was waiting for something to shift—to hear Elena say she'd made a mistake, that the coworker with the startup pitch was just a phase, that the bull market of their marriage could rally.

Instead she served him divorce papers while Brutus watched from the kitchen tile, thumping his tail like a metronome for a song that had already ended.

Now the pool was covered, a dark blue tarp catching rainwater and dead leaves. The bull stared impassively at Marcus's reflection in the glass. Brutus licked his hand, sandpaper tongue dragging across skin, and Marcus realized with sudden clarity that he was drowning on dry land. The dog would die soon, the house would sell, and somewhere Elena was probably already swimming in someone else's pool.

Marcus knelt and buried his face in Brutus's neck, smelling dog and age and the last thing that hadn't left him yet.