Drowning in the Shallows

I found the hat first—a forgotten Panama flattened by the passenger seat, its brim curled like a dead leaf. It had been David's, of course. Everything in this godforsaken apartment was David's. The divorce wasn't even final and already I was swimming in his debris, drowning in the shallow end of a life we'd built together.

The pool beckoned at midnight, its surface still and black as obsidian. I slipped through the sliding doors, the humid California air wrapping around me like a second skin. The water was shockingly cold when I stepped in, gasping as it climbed my calves, my waist, my chest. I floated on my back, staring up at a sky so polluted with light I couldn't see a single star.

"You're going to catch your death out here."

I didn't turn. Marcus from 4B, nursing a cigarette on his balcony. He was thirty, maybe thirty-two—the age David and I had been when we moved in, full of terrifying optimism and joint bank accounts.

"Join me," I said, and to my surprise, he did.

We treaded water in the dark, talking about nothing and everything. His mother's cancer. My fraudulent marriage. The way the complex was raising rent again, squeezing out anyone who'd lived here long enough to remember when the neighborhood was dangerous instead of merely expensive.

Marcus produced an orange from somewhere—his pocket? the pool deck?—and peeled it with his teeth, offering me a segment. The citrus scent cut through the chlorine, sharp and impossibly bright. I ate it, juice running down my chin, and for the first time in three years, I didn't feel like I was waiting for something to begin.

"The hat," Marcus said suddenly, pointing toward my balcony door. "You wearing that to his funeral?"

"He's not dead, Marcus. We're divorced."

"Same thing, isn't it?"

I laughed—really laughed, a sound that felt foreign in my throat. The water buoyed us both, suspended in that perfect weightless moment between what was and what could be. The orange rind floated beside us, breaking down in the water.

Tomorrow I'd call the lawyer. Tomorrow I'd pack the boxes. Tonight, I'd just float.