The Betrayal in Blue

Margaret sat by the hotel pool, the turquoise water undulating like the anxiety in her chest. The bartender had brought her a third mimosa—orange pulp clinging to the glass rim like evidence. She couldn't stop watching them: David's hand on the small of the other woman's back, his laughter carrying across the deck, intimate and familiar in a way that hadn't been directed at Margaret in years.

The palm reader in the lobby had warned her. Three days ago, in this same resort, the woman with the lined hands and too-knowing eyes had traced the lifeline on Margaret's palm and frowned. "There's a branching," she'd said. "A deviation. Someone walks away."

Margaret had paid sixty dollars for what she already knew.

Now, David was helping the woman—a colleague from the Seattle office, young enough that 'workplace appropriate' was the only thing keeping their clothes on—adjust her lounge chair. His fingers grazed her shoulder. Margaret's champagne glass sweated in her own grip, condensation dripping onto her thigh like a tear.

The sun was beginning its descent, painting the sky in bruised shades of orange and violet. The palm fronds overhead rustled in the evening breeze, casting dancing shadows across Margaret's legs. She thought about the other meaning of palm—holding, keeping, letting go.

She had married David twelve years ago beside a different pool, in different light. They'd been poor then, happy in their shared poverty. Now he made six figures and she couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at her like she was the only person in the room.

The bartender appeared beside her. "Another, ma'am?"

Margaret looked at her husband again. He was leaning in close to the Seattle colleague, whispering something that made her laugh—her head thrown back, her throat exposed, her wedding ring conspicuously absent.

"No," Margaret said, setting her glass down on the concrete. "I'm done here."

She stood up, her knees steady for the first time in days. The pool reflected the dying sun like a wound that wouldn't heal, and she walked toward it, toward them, toward whatever came next. The air smelled of coconut sunscreen and impending endings, and for the first time in years, Margaret didn't look away.