Everything That Drains Away

The pool sat empty in the backyard, a cracked blue vessel gathering leaves at the bottom. Marcus stood at the edge, remembering summers when the water had sparkled and children's laughter had ricocheted off the fence. Now it was just a hollow depression, like the space in his chest where something used to live.

His ex-wife's lawyer had warned him about the emotional labor of this final trip to the house. Marcus had borne the news of the divorce with relative grace—at least that's what he told himself. But standing here, among the ghosts of twelve years, he felt the weight of everything he'd lost pressing down on his spine.

"Hey buddy." He knelt as the old golden retriever lumbered over, joints stiff with age. Buster—formerly their dog, now Sarah's—nudged Marcus's hand with that devastatingly unconditional love that dogs somehow manage despite every human failure. Sarah had kept the house, the dog, most of the friends. Marcus had kept the apartment downtown and the crushing silence of weekends.

He'd come to collect his things. Boxes of baseball cards from his youth, old photographs, the fishing gear she'd never understood. In the garage, his son's glove sat on a shelf, leather worn soft from countless practices. Jason was sixteen now, tall and distant, choosing his father's weekends with the careful calculation of someone who'd learned that love was conditional.

Sarah appeared at the slider door, crossing her arms against the October chill. She held an orange, peeling it slowly, the citrus scent cutting through the stale air of the house they'd shared.

"Almost done?" she asked. Not unkindly. Just tired.

Marcus nodded, unable to find words. He looked back at the drained pool one last time, at the orange tree dropping fruit onto the concrete, at the dog watching him with eyes that asked why everyone was so sad all the time.

"Yeah," he said finally. "Almost."