Draining Season

Miranda stood at the edge of the empty pool, her bare feet gripping the rough concrete. October in Phoenix meant the draining season—when neighborhood pools became vast, pale wounds in backyards across the city. This one belonged to David, her ex-husband, though the house had sold months ago to a couple who'd hired her company to close it for winter.

She'd pulled her dark hair back that morning, the same way David had always liked it, but stray strands now stuck to her neck in the dry heat. The pool pump hummed its final breaths.

A flash of orange caught her eye—a cat, thin and battle-scarred, padding along the cracked tile where the deep end sloped. It moved with那种 terrifying confidence of strays, tail flicking as it inspected the drain. Miranda watched it drink from the shallow pool of water remaining at the bottom, hissing when another cat—a shadow on the fence—called out.

David had hated cats. He'd called them nature's freeloaders, but she'd secretly fed the strays behind his back. There'd been a tabby she'd named Arthur, though David never knew. Arthur had disappeared the same week David announced he was leaving. Coincidence, she'd told herself then. Now, watching this orange survivor lap the last water from what had been their marriage's centerpiece, she wasn't so sure.

Her radio crackled—dispatch, checking her status. "Almost finished," she said, though the pump still rattled, the water still drained in thin, reluctant streams.

She climbed down into the deep end, the way she used to swim laps while David grilled chicken and they pretended their life wasn't hollowing out from the inside. The cat watched her from above, head tilted. She reached into the drain, fingers encountering something slim and dark—hair, wrapped around the filter. Long and dark, like hers, but not. Not hers at all.

She dropped it immediately, heart hammering. The water swirled around her ankles, carrying the strand away into the darkness. Of course. Of course there had been someone else. She'd known that, hadn't she? The late nights, the sudden interest in cologne, the way he'd started finding reasons to be elsewhere.

But seeing it—physical proof wrapped around the goddamn pool filter—made it real in a way lawyers and paperwork never could.

The orange cat meowed from above, almost sympathetic. Miranda laughed, a harsh sound that echoed against the tile. She pulled the plug. The last of the water gurgled away, taking the evidence with it. Tomorrow, new owners would fill this pool with their own lives, their own secrets. She climbed out, dried her feet on her shirt, and radioed dispatch that she was done.