Papaya Season

Maria stood by the infinity pool, the Caribbean water stretching endless before her, while inside the villa, Daniel was probably still sleeping off his hangover. She'd been up since dawn, slicing papaya for breakfast, the juice staining her fingers like rust, like the marriage she was now certain was ending.

They'd come to St. Lucia for their tenth anniversary, a last-ditch effort she'd proposed while crying in the shower last November. Now she watched a stray dog—sleek brown ribs visible through wet fur—emerge from the ocean with something in its mouth. A fish? A piece of driftwood? She couldn't tell from here.

The dog dropped its prize on the sand and barked at nothing, at everything. Maria felt like doing the same.

"You're overthinking again," Daniel had told her last night, when she'd tried to discuss the spinach farmer's co-op she wanted to start with her inheritance. "You always do this. We come to paradise, and you want to talk about organic vegetables and business plans."

What he didn't understand—what he'd never understood—was that her dreams weren't symptoms of restlessness. They were her.

She dove into the pool. The water shocked her skin, chlorinated and artificial, nothing like the ocean beyond. She began swimming laps, her body remembering the rhythm from college, when she'd been on the team and believed in discipline and linear progress. Now she circled the same rectangle, going nowhere.

When she emerged, gasping, Daniel was standing at the pool's edge, holding her phone. "Your mother called," he said. "She wants to know if we're still coming for Christmas."

Maria looked at him really looked at him, at the man she'd loved for a decade, whose presence no longer sparked recognition. "Tell her no," she said, and the words felt like surfacing after too long underwater. "Tell her we won't be there."

The dog was gone. The papaya on the breakfast table would turn brown by noon. Somewhere in the world, spinach was growing, and people were making plans, and Maria was finally, terribly, ready to begin.