Static Between innings

The ninth inning stretched like the years between them—slow, agonizing, filled with too many commercials. Elena sat on the edge of the hotel pool, legs submerged in lukewarm water, while Marcus watched baseball on the patio TV. They'd come to Napa Valley to save their marriage. So far, they'd mostly just watched cable and avoided eye contact.

"You going to swim?" Marcus called without turning around.

"Maybe."

She'd been a swimmer in college. That's where they'd met—he at the bleachers, watching her cut through water like she was trying to escape something she couldn't name. Now, at forty-two, she couldn't remember the last time she'd truly felt weightless.

The baseball game droned on. Some player she'd never heard of struck out. Marcus muttered something about statistics. He'd collected baseball cards until he was twenty-five, then traded them for an actuarial career and a mortgage and this woman who was slowly becoming someone he used to know.

Elena slid into the pool. The water engulfed her—chlorine and silence. Underwater, she could hear the distorted murmur of the television, cable news of some game that didn't matter, some life they were supposed to be living together.

She surfaced to hear Marcus laughing at something on screen.

"Honey, you're missing it." His voice was thin across the patio. "Been waiting all season for this play."

Elena treaded water, watching her husband silhouetted against the flickering television. His shoulders slumped. He looked smaller than she remembered, though he was only forty-four, only eight years older than when they'd said "I do" by a lake in Vermont.

She'd met someone. Three weeks ago. A swim instructor at the YMCA who'd helped her perfect her breaststroke. They hadn't touched, hadn't crossed any lines, but for the first time in years, someone had seen her. Really seen her—not as Marcus's wife, not as the collection woman, not as the person who paid the cable bill each month.

Tonight was the night she'd tell him. Or maybe not.

"Marcus?"

"Yeah?" He didn't turn away from the television.

"Remember when we used to swim together?"

"What?" He pressed the mute button. Finally, he looked at her. The cable cast blue shadows across his face. "What are you talking about? That was twenty years ago."

"I know. I was just thinking."

"Baseball's almost over," he said. "Then we can get dinner. Unless you want to swim more?"

"No," she said, pulling herself through water that had suddenly gone cold. "I'm done."