Electric Orange

Marcus found her at 2:17 AM, suspended in the pool like some pale creature discovering water for the first time. The automatic light illuminated her in sickly blue-white, and for a terrible moment, she appeared less like his wife of twenty-three years and more like something that had washed ashore—skin translucent, movements jerky and unnatural. A swimming zombie, he thought, then hated himself for it.

She'd been different since the miscarriage, since the promotion she hadn't wanted, since the silence between them had grown thick enough to choke on. Some mornings he woke to find her already dressed for work, coffee untouched, eyes fixed on nothing he could see. Just going through the motions, alive but not present.

Now Debra noticed him on the patio. She didn't start, didn't cover herself. Just treaded water in the center of the pool, her wedding ring glinting on the submerged ledge where she'd left it.

"The lightning," she said, pointing upward with a pale foot. "Watch."

A storm was moving in from the ocean. Marcus sat on one of the expensive lounge chairs they never used and watched his wife watch the sky. A fork of lightning cracked the darkness, briefly turning the world negative. In that flash, he saw the orange clutched in her hand—a stolen fruit from the hotel's breakfast service, already peeled, sections missing like small bites taken from time itself.

"I swam in college," she said, so softly he almost missed it. "Before law school, before the mergers and acquisitions, before all of it. I was fast. I used to think about swimming away from everything. Just keep going until my arms gave out or I reached another country."

Another flash. In it, Marcus saw them both—two people who had built a life they didn't remember wanting, swimming in circles, waiting for something to strike them down or wake them up.

"What changed?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

Debra peeled another section of the orange, juice running down her fingers to mingle with the pool water. "I stopped believing there was anywhere else to go."

Lightning struck somewhere close. The thunder rolled over them like judgment. Marcus stood, removed his wedding ring, and set it beside hers. Then he stepped into the water, fully dressed. The shock of it woke something in his chest—something that had been dormant for years, waiting for lightning to strike.

"Teach me," he said.

In the electric water, beneath a storm that might drown them or save them, she finally smiled.