Electric Currents

Mara stood at the kitchen sink, watching the water spiral down the drain—much like the last three years of her marriage. Thunder rattled the windowpanes, but she didn't jump. Not anymore.

"You're doing it again," David said from the doorway. He'd stopped asking what she was thinking about. Probably because he didn't want to know.

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the backyard where Buster, their elderly golden retriever, lay motionless in the grass. They'd buried him there two weeks ago. Sometimes she still looked for him, that familiar golden shape against the dark earth.

"I'm not doing anything," she said, turning off the faucet. The pipes groaned in the walls.

"You're somewhere else. Always somewhere else."

Another flash of lightning. This time, Mara saw it—the way the light caught David's face, the weariness etched around his eyes, the way his shoulders slumped. Her husband had become a stranger she shared a mortgage with.

"David," she said softly, "remember that night in the rain? When Buster ran away and we found him three streets over, shivering under that porch?"

He hesitated. "We were so young then."

"We were happy."

"Were we?" The question hung between them, heavier than the storm outside.

Lightning struck again—closer this time. The power flickered, then died. They stood in the sudden darkness, the only sound the rain hammering against the roof, the water still dripping from the faucet.

Mara reached out, found David's hand in the dark. His fingers were cold.

"I don't know if we can find our way back," she whispered.

"Maybe," he said, squeezing her hand, "we're not supposed to. Maybe some things get struck by lightning so you can see what's really standing there in the dark."

Outside, the rain kept falling. In the distance, a dog barked—a sound so like Buster's that Mara's chest tightened. She squeezed David's hand harder, and for once, he didn't pull away.