Sink or Swim

The wilting spinach sat in the colander, exactly where Mara had left it three days ago. Jake stared at it while nursing his lukewarm coffee, the green leaves now collapsing into themselves like his marriage.

His iPhone buzzed against the counter—his mother, again. She wanted to know when they'd give her grandchildren. He didn't answer. The device lit up every few minutes with calendar reminders: counseling appointment, anniversar dinner forgotten, date night canceled. His life reduced to pinging notifications and rotting vegetables.

The pool in their backyard, once the centerpiece of summer parties and late-night floating conversations, now sat covered and stagnant. They'd installed it during what he now called Year Four: the year they still believed they could buy their way to happiness. Now the water beneath the cover had turned a murky green, darker even than the spinach.

Mara emerged from the bedroom wearing her power suit—the navy one she'd bought for the promotion that now required sixty-hour weeks. She didn't look at him, just grabbed an energy bar from the pantry.

"We need to talk," Jake said.

She paused at the door, hand on her phone. "Not tonight."

"We never talk anymore."

"We talked last week. In counseling. Remember?" She shook her head. "I'm late, Jake. The spinach needs to be thrown out. You can't just keep looking at it hoping it'll revive itself."

She left without kissing him goodbye.

He stood there for a long time. Then he walked outside, tore the pool cover back, and dove fully clothed into the murky water. It was shocking and cold and electric—something, finally, that he could feel. His phone began ringing from where he'd left it on the patio table, its screen flickering with incoming calls, vibrating against the stone, unreachable from underwater.

Jake stayed under as long as he could, suspended in the green silence, before breaking the surface, gasping, deciding whether to sink or swim.