Everything We Hoped For

The spinach had been lodged between Marcus's front teeth for three courses. Elena watched it—a tiny green flag of surrender—while he recounted his padel victory against the resort's pro instructor. His palms still sweated from the match, she noticed, as he gestured with his wine glass.

'You should have seen me, El. Came back from 4-2 down.' He laughed, that sound she'd once found charming, now mechanical as a grandfather clock. 'The guy couldn't handle my backhand.'

She nodded, swirling her orange juice—freshly squeezed, allegedly—around its heavy crystal. Beyond him, the infinity pool blurred into the darkening ocean, two blues merging at dusk. Palm fronds rattled in the wind above their table, punctuating the silence between his sentences.

Tomorrow marked fifteen years. Fourteen of them good, or at least adequate. The last one had been something else entirely—not bad, precisely, but hollowed out by small betrayals and unsaid things, like a termite-ridden beam that looked fine until you touched it.

'Are you happy?' she asked suddenly. The question felt foreign in her mouth, a language she'd forgotten she spoke.

Marcus paused, his fork halfway to his mouth with a final bite of salmon. 'What kind of question is that? We're at the Algarve. I just crushed a twenty-something at padel. We're about to order dessert.' He gestured around them. 'This is everything we worked for.'

Elena looked past him at the pool, where a lone swimmer did laps under the golden lights. The water rippled and folded, endless and patient. When she'd told him about the kiss with her colleague—six months ago, once, never again—he'd asked what she needed from him. She'd said she didn't know. She still didn't.

'The spinach, Marcus,' she said softly. 'It's been there since the appetizers.'

His hand went to his mouth automatically, then dropped. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I was waiting to see if you'd notice.' She signaled for the check. 'You didn't.'

The wind picked up, carrying salt and distant laughter. He wiped his palm against his napkin, again and again, as if trying to erase something that had already stained him through.