Drowning in the Shallow End

The cat landed on my chest at 5 AM, a judgmental weight staring into my soul. I'd forgotten to feed him yesterday, distracted by the spreadsheet that refused to balance. Marcus was already gone, off to his office that smelled of cedar and exploitation. I swallowed my vitamin D supplement—doctor said I was deficient, said it might explain the lethargy, the melancholy, the way I'd started reading expiration dates on soup cans like they were horoscopes.

The community pool opened at six. I slipped my floppy hat over unwashed hair, trying to look like a woman who chose this life, not someone who'd backed into it through years of small compromises. The water hit me like a revelation—cold, shocking, honest. I'd learned to swim at thirty-eight, mid-divorce, mid-breakdown, needing something I couldn't fake.

"Early today," said Eleanor, eighty if she was a day, swimming laps with terrifying precision. Her hat covered thinning hair. We didn't ask about each other's lives. That was the arrangement.

"Marcus got the promotion," I said, water filling my mouth. "He took it."

Eleanor tread water, bird-like and ancient. "And you?"

"I'm thinking about leaving."

The word floated between us like something dead. Leaving what? Him? The city? Myself?

"My Harold died last year," Eleanor said suddenly. "Forty years together, and I keep setting the table for two. Muscle memory."

She dove under, emerging at the other end. I followed, stroking through water that held me up even when I couldn't hold myself together. Back at my apartment, the cat was waiting, and Marcus had left a note: dinner at 7, celebrate. I took another vitamin, then another, until the bottle was empty, until I couldn't remember what I was trying to fix.

The hat went in the trash. I didn't go to dinner. Instead, I walked until my feet bled, feeding stray cats I found along the way, thinking how Eleanor kept setting that table, how we all learn to swim in water that's slowly pulling us under, and how sometimes—just sometimes—the drowning feels like flying.