Low Season

The resort was half-empty, hurricane season looming like an unkept promise. Elena sat by the pool, her sunglasses steaming up in the humidity, watching Marcus pace back and forth between the lounge chairs like a caged animal.

"You're making a scene," she said, gesturing toward the family at the other end of the pool—a father and two kids splashing in the shallow end, pretending nothing was wrong in their world.

Marcus stopped pacing. He leaned against a palm tree, its trunk scarred with initials from couples who'd once thought their love would outlast the Caribbean heat. "I'm not making a scene, Elena. I'm asking for honesty."

"Honesty." She laughed, bitter and short. "Like you were honest when you said we'd come here to fix things?"

"We did come here to—"

"To decide. You mean to decide." She pulled her sunglasses off, her eyes rimmed with red. "Three days ago you watched baseball in the bar with strangers rather than sit with me at dinner. You hate sports. You've never watched a game in ten years of marriage."

"It was the World Series."

"It was May. There's no World Series in May."

He ran his hand through his hair, defeated. "I just couldn't do it. Another dinner with you ordering the same thing, asking if I had enough to eat, checking if I wanted more wine like I'm a child."

"That's what the resort chef called it." She shook her head. "Creamed spinach with a 'gourmet twist.' It came out of a packet, Marcus. I saw the boxes in the kitchen when I went looking for aspirin."

"What?"

"The spinach. The chef didn't make anything. It's all frozen, all fake. Just like us."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and saw what he'd been refusing to see for months. Maybe longer. She wasn't angry anymore. She was exhausted.

"I'm going to the room," he said.

"Pack your things first."

"Elena—"

"You checked us out yesterday, didn't you? When you said you were going for a walk along the water?"

He said nothing. He watched the family by the pool, the kids shrieking as their father tossed them into the air. They'd come here every year, he'd heard them say at check-in. Their annual pilgrimage, rain or shine.

"Yes," Marcus said finally.

She nodded, like she'd won a bet she hadn't wanted to place. "Then there's nothing left to say."

He walked away without looking back, passing the pool where the water rippled in the breeze. Behind him, beneath the palm trees, his wife ordered another drink from a waiter who'd seen this scene a hundred times before.