The Architecture of Loss

The **palm** tree cast a spiderweb shadow across Mark's chest as he lay by the **pool**, his **iphone** buzzing rhythmically against the slate tile. Another Slack notification. Another email demanding what he'd already promised three times. He'd come to Cabo to finish his architectural drawings, but instead he'd spent three days constructing nothing but elaborate excuses for why he wasn't working.

"You're not actually here, are you?"

Mark shielded his eyes. Amelia stood over him, her silhouette backlit by merciless Mexican sun. She held two **vitamin** supplements in her palm — the prenatal ones she'd stopped taking six months ago, after the third miscarriage. They'd never talked about it. Not really. They'd just moved furniture around the empty space in their marriage and called it redecorating.

"I'm working," he said, though his phone screen showed only the sunset photo he'd taken of her yesterday.

"You're archiving us." She sat on the edge of his lounge chair, close enough that he could smell the coconut oil on her skin, the chlorine in her hair. "You take pictures of moments instead of being in them. You document our life like you're curating a museum exhibit of a marriage that's already dead."

A stray **dog** — some golden retriever mix with fur the color of desert twilight — wandered over from the neighboring villa and lay down at their feet, resting its chin on Amelia's sandal. It didn't beg. Just watched them with ancient, knowing eyes.

"Amelia, I —"

"The divorce papers are in the safe," she said. "I filed them yesterday." She pressed the two vitamins into his hand, folded his fingers around them. "Take these. They're expired anyway."

She walked away toward the ocean without looking back. The dog stood and followed her, as if deciding where loyalty belonged.

Mark lay there until the sun set, until the **pool** lights flickered on beneath the water's surface, illuminating everything he'd refused to see. The vitamins dissolved in his sweating palm, leaving a white residue that looked suspiciously like the residue of a life half-lived.

His **iphone** buzzed again. This time he didn't pick it up.