Dissolving at the Edge

The pool was empty at four in the afternoon, which was exactly why Elena chose this hour. She sat on the lounger with her water bottle and the small plastic organizer of supplements her doctor had insisted she start taking. A multivitamin, Vitamin D, magnesium—tiny promises of future health that felt more like concessions to aging.

She swallowed them without water, the dry pills catching in her throat. Forty-two years old and suddenly everything required maintenance.

An orange tabby cat appeared from behind the hedge, moving with that deliberate feline indifference that suggested it owned the place. It jumped onto the chair beside her, curling into a perfect circle despite the September chill.

"You're not supposed to be here," she said, but didn't shoo it away.

The cat cracked one eye, yellow as the sun beginning to stain the sky. An orange sunset was bleeding into the water, turning the pool into something almost violent in its beauty. Elena thought about how David used to wake her to watch sunsets, how she'd complained about the lost sleep, how he'd stopped asking.

The divorce papers had arrived yesterday morning. She'd signed them over coffee, tasting nothing.

A man in swim trunks emerged from the hotel's sliding doors. He looked maybe ten years younger, handsome in a way that suggested he didn't know it yet. He hesitated when he saw her, then approached.

"Is this seat taken?" He gestured to the cat.

Elena laughed, surprised by the sound. "By him."

The man smiled—nicely, not predatorily. "They do have a way of claiming things." He slipped into the pool with practiced grace, cutting through the orange surface with clean strokes.

The cat purred, a rumble against the aluminum frame. Elena watched the swimmer, counting laps, thinking about absorption rates and blood tests and all the ways the body took what it needed and rejected the rest. Maybe hearts worked the same way.

She'd need to buy more vitamins tomorrow. That was something.

The swimmer hauled himself out, water streaming down his chest. "You're here tomorrow?" he asked, toweling off without waiting for an answer. "Same time?"

Elena looked at the cat, now fully asleep, at the fading orange light, at the plastic vitamin organizer she'd need to refill.

"Yes," she said, and meant it. "I'll be here."