Signal Loss

The modem's fourth light blinked out, taking Marco with it. Elena's husband had been mid-sentence about quarterly projections when the cable connection severed, his face freezing in a grotesque pixelated mask before vanishing entirely. She stared at the black screen for a long moment, the sudden silence in their Tokyo apartment heavier than his voice had been.

She should call the service provider. Instead, she wandered into the bathroom and caught her reflection in the mirror—really looked at it, for the first time in months. A strand of silver hair gleamed at her temple, defiant and impossible to miss. She'd been thirty-four when they'd moved here for his promotion. Now she was thirty-eight, and somehow she'd aged a decade in four years. The corporate apartment had a pool she'd never used. Marco had joked they were swimming in money, but she'd been drowning since the day they landed.

The concierge had mentioned the building's pool twice this week alone. Elena found herself in the hallway, then in the elevator, then standing at the edge of the water at midnight. The pool was empty, the water still and impossibly blue under the harsh fluorescent lights. She stripped down to her underwear and slipped in.

The cold shocked her lungs. She began to swim, clumsy at first, then finding a rhythm that felt like something she'd once known. Back and forth, through water that held her up, asked nothing of her, didn't care about quarterly projections or visa extensions or the careful curated life she'd been living for a man she couldn't remember how to touch without pretense.

Back in the apartment, dripping on the imported Italian rug, the modem's lights had returned. Marco's face reappeared on her laptop, distorted and impatient: "Jesus, Elena, I've been trying to reconnect for twenty minutes. Did you not think to check the cable?"

She looked at him, water still pooling beneath her like an offering. "No," she said softly. "I didn't."