The Dead Don't Play Padel

Elena moved across the court like something undead — arms jerking, eyes glassy, mouth fixed in that rictus she'd worn since the promotion. Three months of fourteen-hour days had turned my wife into a creature who looked like Elena but shuffled through our life like a zombie, eating leftovers in the dark and mumbling about quarterly projections.

I watched from the poolside cabana, nursing a gin that had gone watery in the heat. The resort's pool shimmered turquoise behind me, filled with laughter and the smell of coconut sunscreen. Inside the low fence of the padel court, Elena smashed the ball against the glass wall, her opponent — some slick-haired VP from the Singapore office — laughing too loudly at her jokes.

The message had arrived two hours ago: a encrypted file on my phone, forwarded from a burner account. Elena's corporate emails, her calendar, her recruitment dossier. She hadn't been promoted. She'd been inserted.

I thought about the last year — the questions about my company's encryption protocols, the interest in my R&D meetings, the new password on her laptop. The spy jokes I'd made, her nervous laughter. She was good. I'd give her that.

The padel ball ricocheted off the wall. Elena pivoted, her movement graceful for once, almost like the woman I'd married five years ago in a small civil ceremony, the one who'd made fun of corporate ladder-climbing and talked about opening a bookstore.

When had that woman died? Before the recruitment or after?

She spotted me then, froze mid-swing. Something flickered across her face — guilt, recognition, maybe even regret. The zombie cracked. Then she smoothed it over, the professional mask sliding back into place, and raised her racket in a wave that asked nothing and forgave less.

I finished my drink, stood up, and walked toward the court. Not to confront her. Some marriages die quietly, and some deserve a proper burial. Either way, I was done haunting a dead thing.