Floating

The pool had gone murky-green with neglect, much like the seven years of our marriage. I stood on the concrete deck, clutching David's old fedora—that ridiculous affectation he'd worn to our wedding, convinced channeling 1920s gangsters made him mysterious instead of just precious.

"You're doing it again," David said from the patio chair. "That thing where you disappear into your head and leave your body behind."

He was right, but I didn't care. I was thinking about last night, how he'd whispered into my hair, *I don't know how to love you anymore*, and how I'd pretended to sleep, how I'd counted the breaths until dawn.

"I'm making dinner," I said. "Salad. There's spinach wilting in the crisper."

"You always buy spinach and never eat it. You buy it for the person you think you should be."

He sounded like his mother. He sounded like a goddamn fortune cookie with an attitude problem.

"What do you want from me, David?"

"I want you to be here. Present. I want to know if you're staying or if I should stop waiting for the other shoe to drop."

A mosquito bit my arm and I didn't slap it away. The pain was small and sharp and honest.

"Remember when we saw that bear in Yosemite?" I asked suddenly. "That mama bear with the cubs, how she stood between us and them? You said—that's what love is. That ferocious protection."

"I remember," he said quietly. "I also remember you said: that's what I need. Someone to look at me like that."

The hat in my hands felt heavy, weighted with seven years of almosts and not-quites and good-enoughs. I dropped it. It floated on the surface of the green water, black felt spreading like an oil slick.

"The spinach is definitely bad," I said. "We should order pizza."

David stood up and walked to the edge of the pool. He looked at the hat, then at me. Something in his face shifted—exhaustion maybe, or clarity.

"I love you," he said. "I think I'm done loving you. There's a difference."

I nodded. The thing I'd been waiting for had finally happened, and it was smaller than I'd imagined. A bear in the distance, not standing between us but walking away.

"Pizza sounds good," I said. "But I'm picking the toppings this time."