Pyramid Schemes by the Infinity Pool

David should have been watching Elena swim. Instead, he was scrolling through forensic documents on his tablet, the blue light harsh against the twilight.

"You're doing it again," she said, climbing out of the infinity pool. Water streamed down her body like liquid silver. "We came to Mexico to save our marriage, not so you could depose another white-collar criminal."

"The pyramid scheme doesn't sleep, Elena. Neither do the victims."

"And what about us?" She toweled her hair, the movements sharp. "We're just like them, aren't we? Stuck at the bottom of someone else's pyramid, working ourselves to death hoping we'll be the ones who make it to the top."

A palm frond rustled in the breeze, casting shadows across her face. She looked older than she had three years ago when they'd married. Lines around her mouth that hadn't been there before.

"This case is different," David said, but the words felt hollow.

"Is it?" Elena laughed, dark humor in her voice. "Last Christmas you missed your mother's funeral because a merger needed closing. Last anniversary, you were in Chicago uncovering embezzlement. And now—" she gestured at the tablet "—now you're building a case while your wife drowns in front of you."

"You're not drowning. You're swimming laps."

"Am I?" She stepped closer, dripping water onto his dress shoes. "Or am I just treading water until I can't anymore?"

David set down the tablet. For the first time in three days, he really looked at her. The hollow eyes. The weight loss he'd ignored. The way her hands trembled slightly.

"I thought," she continued, "that maybe this trip—away from the emails, the subpoenas, the constant emergencies—would remind you why you married me. But I'm just another item on your to-do list, aren't I? Something to be managed, delegated, postponed."

The sun sank behind the mountains, painting the sky in violent shades of purple and red. A waiter moved through the darkness, lighting torches around the pool area.

"I'm sorry," David said, and the words tasted unfamiliar in his mouth. "I don't know how to stop. The work—it's the only thing I'm good at anymore."

"That's the saddest thing you've ever said to me." Elena picked up her cover-up, slipped it over her swimsuit. "I'm going to pack. I booked a flight home. Alone."

"Elena, wait—"

"No more waiting, David. I'm done waiting for you to choose me." She walked away, back toward the resort, leaving him alone by the pool with his tablet and the distant sound of water lapping against stone edges. David looked down at the documents, at the pyramid he'd been so determined to dismantle, and understood suddenly that he'd spent three years building one of his own.