The Chlorine Aftertaste

The company retreat had been Mark's idea. Something about team building, though the only thing being built was the wall between us, brick by suffocating brick. I stood by the hotel pool, nursing a lukewarm gin and tonic, watching my husband of seventeen years float on his back like a man without a care in the world.

He'd ordered the spinach salad for lunch—his pathetic attempt at being healthy, at starting fresh, at thirty-nine years old. A piece of green leaf had lodged itself between his front teeth, a small black comma in the sentence of his smile. He'd been laughing at something his assistant said, that girl with the incapable name and the very capable ambition, and no one had told him. I watched him charm his way through conversation, clueless and ridiculous, and felt something vital snap inside me.

"You're not swimming?" Mark asked later, toweling off his hair. The smell of chlorine clung to him, sharp and chemical.

"I'm tired," I said. "Always tired lately."

He'd moved to the edge of the pool, dangling his legs in the water. "You used to love swimming. Remember that summer in Greece? We swam every morning before dawn."

I remembered. I remembered everything. How he'd held my hair when I got sick on the ferry. How he looked at me then, like I was the only shore he'd ever need. That man was gone, drowned somewhere in the accumulation of small disappointments, the erosion of desire into something comfortable and stagnant.

"I'm not twenty-two anymore, Mark."

"Who said anything about twenty-two?" He pulled me toward the pool, his grip loose and confident. "Come in. The water's perfect."

I looked at the spinach still caught in his teeth, at the way his eyes kept darting to his assistant across the patio, and I made my choice.

"No," I said, pulling away. "I think I'm done swimming."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm getting out of the water before I forget how it feels to stand on solid ground."

He laughed, uncomfortable and dismissive, but I watched his expression shift as he really looked at me for the first time in years. The spinach was still there, and suddenly it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

"Mark," I said, gently now. "You have something in your teeth."

His hand flew to his mouth. The girl across the pool wasn't laughing anymore. I finished my drink, the ice melting into nothing, and walked back to our room alone to pack.