Ripe

Claire sat by the infinity pool at 2 AM, her iphone casting a ghostly blue light across her face. Three missed calls from David. One unread text: 'Are you coming back to the room?' She didn't answer. Some questions didn't deserve the dignity of a response.

The pool water lapped against the edge, black and endless, like the future she'd spent six years planning. Tomorrow morning, they'd fly home. Tomorrow morning, she'd tell him about the positive test—the one she'd taken three hours ago in the sterile airport bathroom. The one that should have brought them joy, not the hollow ache expanding in her chest like a swallowed stone.

She'd ordered papaya from room service, something sweet and alive to counter the metallic taste of the prenatal vitamins she'd been choking down for months. The fruit sat on the glass table, orange flesh glistening in the moonlight, impossibly ripe. She'd always associated papaya with her mother, who'd eaten it religiously during her own pregnancies, convinced it guaranteed healthy children. Claire's brother had been born with a heart defect. Her mother still ate papaya, still believed.

Claire took a bite. It was perfect, which made it worse.

She thought about vitamin supplements, the way they promised to fix everything—deficiencies you didn't know you had, problems that could be solved with the right combination of chemicals and hope. That's what this trip was supposed to be. A vitamin for their marriage. A concentrated dose of romance in a $1,200-per-night resort suite with its own private plunge pool and a guarantee of reconnection.

Instead, David had spent three days on conference calls while she'd floated in this very pool, learning to be alone again.

Her phone buzzed. David again. Then her mother. Then her sister. The screen lit up with notifications like tiny accusations. She stood up, iphone clutched in her hand, and walked to the water's edge.

She could throw it in. She could leave David tomorrow, fly home alone, figure out the rest later. She could keep the baby or not. She could become one of those women who reinvented themselves at thirty-five, who found something unexpected in the wreckage.

Instead, she set the phone on the table next to the papaya. She stripped off her silk robe and slipped into the water. It was cool against her skin, clean and uncomplicated. For a moment, everything was quiet.

She would go back to the room. She would tell David about the baby. They would try, again, to build something that resembled a family. But not tonight. Tonight, she floated in the dark, suspended between the woman she'd been and the one she was becoming, and for the first time in months, she didn't need anything to be different than it was.

The papaya sat on the table. In the morning, it would be overripe. But for now, it was exactly right.