The Art of Holding On

The running hadn't helped. Not really. Elias's legs burned, his lungs scraped raw, but the panic still pressed against his ribs like a second heartbeat. He'd been running for forty minutes around the resort grounds, past the identical cabanas, the manicured gardens, the other guests who all seemed happier than he was.

He found himself back at the pool, where Marie sat in the same lounge chair he'd left her three hours ago. She wasn't reading. She wasn't sleeping. She was just staring at her palm, tracing the lines with a thumbnail, as if the answers to their unraveling marriage might be written there in skin and ink.

"Elias," she said, not looking up. "You're dripping."

"Sorry." He grabbed a towel, mopping at his forehead. The humidity here was different from home—oppressive, somehow. Or maybe it was just them.

They'd come to St. Lucia for their tenth anniversary. A second honeymoon, they'd called it. A chance to remember why they'd chosen each other in the first place. But four days in, and the only thing they'd remembered was how good they were at silence.

Marie stood up, walked to the edge of the pool where it fed into a small ornamental pond. Orange and white goldfish darted between water lilies, their movements quick and purposeful. She trailed her fingers in the water, and the fish gathered around her hand like children waiting for crumbs.

"Remember when we watched that baseball game," she said quietly, "after your mother's funeral? The Cubs versus the Cardinals, and neither of us cared about either team, but we sat there for six innings because the noise felt better than the quiet."

Elias remembered. The television had been too loud. He'd spilled beer on his shirt. Marie had rested her head on his shoulder and he'd thought, This is enough. This will always be enough.

"I remember," he said.

"You held my hand like you were afraid I'd disappear." She turned to face him then, her eyes searching. "When did you stop?"

The question hung between them, heavier than the humidity. Elias looked at the goldfish still circling Marie's fingers, their mouths opening and closing in silent supplication. They'd swim in circles their whole lives, never knowing there was an ocean beyond their pond.

He reached for Marie's hand—the same one she'd been studying earlier, the same one he'd held through that baseball game, through job losses and apartment moves and three rounds of fertility treatments that had failed, one after another, until they'd just stopped trying.

"I didn't stop," he said. "I just forgot how to hold on right."

She let him take her hand. Her palm was warm, damp from the pool water. They stood there as the sun began to set, the goldfish still circling beneath them, and for the first time in years, Elias didn't feel like running.