Fox at the Pool Edge

The papaya sat untouched on the breakfast tray, its flesh weeping into the porcelain bowl. Elena stared at it, not because she wasn't hungry, but because her iPhone kept vibrating with texts she couldn't bring herself to answer. Mark's messages were relentless: *Where are you? We need to talk. Please pick up.*

She'd left their condo at dawn, driven two hours to this resort town, and checked into a room with a view of the pool. The clerk had given her a pitying look when he saw no luggage, just her purse and the paper bag with the papaya she'd bought at a roadside stand because it reminded her of their honeymoon in St. Lucia.

Now she stood at the pool's edge, watching her reflection distort in the water. A fox emerged from the hedgerow—scrawny, russet, impossibly bold in the daylight. It moved along the pool's perimeter, head lifted, testing the air. Elena held her breath. The fox fixed her with amber eyes, recognizing something kin in her stillness.

Her phone buzzed again. *I'm coming to find you.*

The fox bolted then, running toward the parking lot with sudden purpose. Elena thought about running too—getting in her car and driving until the landscape turned unfamiliar. But the papaya waited upstairs, and the memory of Mark's face when he'd told her about the other woman, how he'd said it like he was confessing to a theft instead of destroying a marriage.

She waded into the pool, clothes and all. The water shocked her skin, cold and chlorinated and absolutely real. When she emerged, dripping, her phone lay on a lounge chair where she'd left it. Mark could come find her if he wanted. She'd be here, learning to be alone again.