Surface Tension

Marcus sat on the edge of the pool, legs submerged in water that felt too warm for October. His brother's new house had everything— screened porch, organic garden, a wife who didn't look through his phone messages. The baseball game drifted from speakers somewhere, another loss for the home team.

"You're staring again," Elena said, dropping into the lounge chair beside him. She held a plastic cup of wine, her third since arriving.

"Just thinking."

"You've been thinking since July, Marc." She touched his shoulder, her fingers light. "The bear of a burden you're carrying isn't going to lift itself."

He'd told her about the offer months ago— Seattle, startup, relocation package, fresh start. What he hadn't said: he'd already accepted. The signed contract sat in his desk drawer, buried under unpaid bills and photographs he couldn't look at anymore.

Their son cannonballed into the deep end. Water sprayed Marcus's face.

"Cool!" Leo shouted, surfacing with gasping breath. "Watch me hold my breath!"

Elena closed her eyes, pretending not to notice how his trunks slipped. "That's amazing, honey."

Marcus thought about the goldfish bowl in Leo's bedroom back home— how the fish had lived for three years, how neither of them could remember whose idea it was to buy it, how the thing kept swimming in circles while they argued over dinner, over money, over whether they were still happy. The fish died last week. Neither of them had mentioned it.

"You ever feel like we're just holding our breath?" Marcus asked.

Elena's eyes opened. She didn't look at him. "The fourth inning. They always play the same ads."

"That's not an answer."

"What do you want me to say?" She set down her cup. "That I'm happy? That I don't think about Seattle every night? That I don't know about the contract?"

Marcus pulled his legs from the water. The evening air hit his skin, cold and sudden.

"You knew."

"I'm your wife, Marcus. I've known you since we were twenty-two." She stood up, smoothing her dress. "The question isn't whether you're going. It's whether I'm supposed to wait."

Leo broke the surface again, gasping, grinning, completely unaware that everything in his parents' world had just slipped beneath the surface tension, somewhere between the shallow end and the deep.