Still Life with Cable

Margaret hadn't swum in the pool since she moved in three years ago. She watched it from her balcony, that chlorinated blue kidney bean surrounded by lounge chairs like empty confessionals. The water shimmered with promises she couldn't keep to herself.

Her cat, Bartholomew, appeared at the sliding door, demanding dinner with the imperiousness of small creatures who know they're the only thing keeping you from unraveling completely. Margaret had stopped unraveling somewhere around the time David left. She'd merely frayed at the edges now.

"You're lucky," she told the cat, filling his bowl. "You don't remember phone numbers that don't work anymore."

The cable guy was supposed to come between noon and three. It was now four-fifteen, and Margaret had been sitting in her living room since morning, waiting like she used to wait for calls that never came. The cable wasn't even broken. She'd just ordered the premium package — something to fill the silence that had settled in her apartment like unwanted dust.

When the knock finally came, she jumped.

The cable guy was younger than she expected, with tired eyes and tattoos creeping out from his rolled sleeves. He worked efficiently, saying nothing beyond "I'll need to get behind the TV" and "There, should be good now."

He was packing up when he paused. "I saw you have a cat."

"Yes."

"My wife wanted one. I told her no, we move too much. She left anyway."

He said it without looking at her, testing coax cables with a little multimeter.

"I'm sorry," Margaret said, meaning it.

"It's been eight months." He looked up then. "You still swim? I see the pool from your balcony."

"No."

"Me neither. But sometimes I think about it. Just... getting in the water. Letting it hold you up, you know?"

Margaret thought of David's voice when they'd first met, how it had felt like being understood without speaking. The water in the pool rippled in the afternoon light.

"I should go," he said.

"Wait." She didn't know why she said it. "The pool. It's supposed to be heated."

He looked at her for a long moment. "I'm still on the clock."

"Tomorrow?"

"I don't work this building tomorrow."

"The next day?"

He smiled, actually smiled, and something in Margaret's chest moved that had been still too long. "Bartholomew," she'd told him at the door. "The cat's name."

"See you around, Margaret."

She didn't know if she would. But that night, for the first time in three years, she opened the sliding door and stepped out into the humidity. The pool waited, its surface promising something she couldn't name. She dipped her foot in. The water held her weight, just like he'd said it would.