Deep End

The pool hadn't been drained in twenty years. Maria stood at the edge, skimming net in hand, watching algae bloom across the surface like a slow-motion bruise. The house behind her sat dark, foreclosure notice taped to the door since October.

"You don't have to do this."

She turned. Daniel stood on the patio, gray hair thinner than she remembered, wearing the same Dodgers jacket from college. He looked like someone who'd been hollowed out from the inside.

"I told the real estate agent I'd clean it," she said. "Before the new owners move in."

"There aren't any new owners, Maria. Bank owns it now. They're probably just going to fill it with concrete."

She kept skimming. "I remember you saying you'd put a cable out here. So we could watch movies while we floated. You were going to run it through the PVC pipes before they poured the deck."

Daniel stepped closer. The pool lights flickered on—timers still running after everything else had stopped. Blue electric glow rippled across his face.

"I did run it," he said quietly. "It's still there."

Maria stopped. "You never mentioned it."

"You moved to Chicago two weeks later. We weren't really speaking, if you recall."

"Because you slept with my sister."

"Because I was in love with you and didn't know how to say it, so I did something incredibly stupid instead." He rubbed his face. "The cable's still connected to the junction box behind the shed. The line's dead now, obviously. But it's there."

Maria looked at him—really looked—for the first time since she'd driven down this winding street that morning. The man who'd been her best friend for twenty years. The man who'd betrayed her. The man standing in the blue light of a dead pool's last evening.

"I got divorced," she said."

"I know. Your sister told me."

"Of course she did." Maria set down the net. "Daniel, why did you ask me to come here?"

"I'm selling everything," he said. "Moving to Portugal next month. I wanted you to have first pick of the things worth keeping." He paused. "And I wanted you to know I still have the cable."

"The cable?"

"The promise. The one about watching movies while we floated. I never could bring myself to have it ripped out."

Maria walked to the edge of the deep end. The water was still, reflecting nothing.

"We're forty-eight years old," she said. "We're not putting a mattress on a diving board and watching Casablanca."

"No," Daniel agreed. "But I have a bottle of wine in the car, and I found an extension cord that still works."

Maria looked at the foreclosure notice, then back at him. "Portugal, huh?"

"They say the winters are mild."

She smiled—a small, careful thing. "Tell me about it while we finish this wine."

The blue light washed over them as the pool waited, patient and remembering everything.