Dead Things in the Sunlight
The spinach leaf clung to Marcus's chin like something ashamed. Julie watched it from across the poolside table, hypnotized by how the green had gone slack and translucent in the CancĂşn heat. Three years of marriage and she still couldn't decide if this was charming or pathetic.
"You've got—" she started, but Marcus was already mid-story about the Q3 projections, his phone held ritualistically between them like an Orthodox prayer book. The iPhone glowed with incoming Slack notifications, a baptism of corporate urgency he couldn't resist.
"Hold on," he said, not looking up. "David needs this spreadsheet by five."
Julie turned toward the infinity pool, where blue water dissolved into the Caribbean sky. She'd dreamed of this vacation for months—just the two of them, no emails, no deadlines. Instead, Marcus had spent three days conducting board meetings from a lounger, his skin turning that worrying shade of maroon that telegraphed midlife crisis to everyone at the resort.
The worst part wasn't the neglect. It was that she'd become a zombie in her own marriage—moving through the motions of intimacy, craving something she couldn't name, eating hotel food that tasted like resignation. She'd caught her own reflection that morning: hollowed-out eyes, a smile that didn't travel upward anymore.
"Babe?" Marcus said. She turned back. The spinach leaf was gone, swallowed somewhere in the Corporate America he carried between his teeth. "You okay? You look far away."
The question landed like a small kindness she didn't deserve. Julie studied him—really looked—at the worry lines deepening around his mouth, at how his fingers formed a cathedral around that phone, at the way he was trying, in his inadequate way, to build something lasting between them. Maybe they were both dead things swimming in the sunlight, waiting to rot or be resurrected.
"Just thinking," she said, reaching across the table to cover his hand with hers. The iPhone screen went dark. "About spinach."