Lane Four

The iPhone buzzed against the nightstand for the third time. Sarah ignored it, pulling the duvet tighter around herself. The bedroom door opened—David, home from another late night at the firm. His tie was already loosened, that particular gray one she'd given him three Christmases ago.

"Who's texting at 2 AM?" he asked, not really asking.

"Wrong number," she said.

She'd been swimming at the university pool lately—old habit from her college days, something she'd taken up again when the silence between them grew too loud. There was something meditative about lane four, back and forth, the water muffling everything until her thoughts became just rhythm and breath.

The next morning, she was running laps when her phone buzzed on the pool deck. She treaded water, squinting at the screen. A message from her mother: "Your father fell again. It's time."

Sarah pulled herself from the water, dripping and suddenly cold. The iPhone had sixteen missed calls from David. She called him back.

"I can't keep doing this," he said when he answered. "Whatever you're running from—I can't chase you anymore."

The water dripped from her hair onto the concrete. A lifeguard watched her from the chair, bored.

"I'm not running," she said, and realized she was crying. "I'm just swimming."

"Same thing," he said, and hung up.

Sarah sat on the edge of the pool, her legs in the water. The iPhone screen showed a photo of them from two years ago—some rooftop bar, both laughing at something neither could remember now. She wasn't sure when the distance had become unbridgeable, or if it had always been there, just better hidden.

Her mother called again while Sarah was still sitting there, feet dangling in lane four.

"You need to come home," her mother said. "Before—"

Sarah slid into the water, phone and all, and pushed off from the wall. The chlorine stung her eyes, but underwater, everything was muffled and blue and strangely peaceful. She touched the other end, turned, pushed off again. Some distances couldn't be swum across. Some things, you just had to let drown.