The Data in the Deep

She found the swimming app first—a pale blue icon among hundreds on his iphone, glowing in the darkness of their bedroom at 3 AM. It shouldn't have caught her attention. But there it was: 'SwimTracker Pro,' recording laps at the downtown YMCA. The same YMCA where she'd suggested he join three months ago, when his doctor had warned about his cholesterol.

He'd never gone. Or so he'd said.

The app told another story. Forty laps yesterday morning. Sixty this morning. And this evening, at 7:15 PM, another forty.

She should have woken him. Asked him about it. But something in her chest—something that had been tightening for months like a coral around her heart—told her to wait.

Tomorrow morning, she called in sick. Drove to the YMCA, parked across the street with a coffee that went cold in her hands.

She saw him emerge from the building at 11:30 AM, his hair wet and slicked back, droplets still clinging to his neck. He wasn't alone. A woman walked beside him—orange hair, bright and unnatural, vivid against the gray morning. She touched his arm. He laughed, head tilted back, that laugh she hadn't heard in years. They got into separate cars. His drove toward their neighborhood. Hers drove the opposite direction.

She sat there for ten minutes. Fifteen. The coffee cup crumpled in her hand.

Her iphone buzzed in her purse—a text from him. 'Great swim this morning! Feeling so much better already.'

She watched a text pop up on the screen, delivered to her husband's phone through the shared family plan she'd set up years ago. From 'Her'—the name a stark accusation in black text on white background: 'Same time tomorrow?'

He replied: 'Can't wait. Swimming with you is the only thing keeping me sane.'

She started the car. Backed out of the parking space. She would go home. She would pack. She would leave before he returned. The swimming data had told her everything she needed to know about the lengths people would go to keep themselves afloat, and who they'd let drown in the process.