Electric Waters

The photograph sat on her nightstand, curled at the edges where moisture had claimed it years ago. In it, Marcus wore that ridiculous fedora he'd insisted was sophisticated, grinning like he knew something she didn't. She'd burned everything else after the funeral — the letters, the clothes, the half-finished coffee mug still stained with his lipstick — but this one photograph she'd kept. A coward's memento, really.

The storm outside was gathering force, and she could feel the pressure building behind her eyes. Another anniversary. Another evening of ritual grief disguised as something private and profound, though she suspected it was merely habitual. Self-indulgent.

Her cat, Luther, wound through her legs, purring with that maddening confidence of creatures who've never contemplated their own mortality. She picked him up, buried her face in his orange fur, inhaling the familiar scent that somehow remained constant when everything else — her marriage, her career, her sense of purpose — had dissolved or transformed beyond recognition.

The rain began suddenly, violent and demanding, and she found herself at the patio doors watching the pool below. Lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the water in strobe flashes that made it appear alive and predatory. She remembered how Marcus had loved swimming in storms, how he'd laugh when she'd called it reckless. "The water feels different then," he'd said. "Like it knows something you don't."

She was outside before she could question the impulse, Luther trailing her with concerned yowls. The rain was cold and immediate, plastering her silk pajamas to her skin. The hat she'd snatched from the hook — Marcus's hat, the one from the photo — sat awkwardly on her head. A madwoman's costume.

The pool was dark and roiling. She stepped in fully clothed, the water shocking her breath away, and began to swim. Not with purpose or grace, but with the desperate motion of someone trying to outpace their own thoughts. Lightning struck somewhere nearby, the simultaneous flash and thunder, and she thought: this is what he meant. The water did feel different. Charged. Dangerous. Honest.

She surfaced gasping, laughing, weeping — the three responses to terror indistinguishable at this depth. The hat floated beside her, and she watched it drift toward the pool's edge, carried by wind and circumstance.

"Let it go," she said aloud, surprised by her own voice. And she did.