Palm Reading in Paradise

The palm trees swayed like drunks at a wedding, their fronds brushing against the glass of our private cabana. Marcus lay on the lounge chair, eyes closed, phone abandoned on his chest, rising and falling with each breath. He looked peaceful, finally. After six months of 80-hour weeks, the merger closed yesterday. We were supposed to be celebrating.

I stared at my own palm, tracing the life line that ran deep and unbroken. The old woman on the beach yesterday had grabbed my hand without asking, her skin like paper, her eyes milky with cataracts. "You think this is a long life," she'd cackled, pressing a dirty fingernail into my palm. "But look closer. It breaks here." She'd pointed to a faint interruption I'd never noticed. "Something dies before you're forty. Something important."

I'd laughed, paid her twenty pesos, and walked away. But now, watching Marcus sleep, I felt the weight of her words settling into my bones like water into a sinking ship.

"Sarah?" His voice was rough. He hadn't spoken since we arrived yesterday.

"I'm going for a swim," I said, standing up too quickly. My chair scraped against the stone.

He didn't respond.

The ocean stretched out before me, vast and indifferent. I waded in until the water reached my waist, then chest, then neck. The salt stung my lips. I floated on my back, staring up at the palm trees that lined the beach, their silhouettes sharp against the darkening sky. I thought about the woman's prophecy, about Marcus sleeping through our anniversary dinner last week, about the way he'd looked right through me this morning when I'd asked what he wanted to do today.

I realized then that I'd become a zombie in my own marriage—still moving, still functioning, but hollowed out from the inside. The life line on my palm might continue for decades, but the person I'd been when I chose him was already gone.

When I returned to the cabana, Marcus was awake. "There you are," he said, smiling vaguely. "I was worried."

He didn't remember I'd been gone for an hour. He didn't remember my name, sometimes, on the worst days. The early onset dementia diagnosis had come three months ago; I'd been his nurse, his keeper, his witness ever since.

"Just swimming," I said, taking his hand, tracing the lines I knew by heart. "Just swimming."