The Dead Summer

The hotel pool was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly why Elena chose it. She floated on her back, the chlorine smell sharp in her nose, staring up at the constellations she'd memorized as a child but hadn't bothered to name in years.

Her phone buzzed on the patio chair — David, again. Three months of emails had reduced their marriage to a series of forwarded bills and custody schedules. She felt like something already dead, still walking through the motions of a life she no longer recognized. A zombie, really.

The sphinx pendant he'd given her for their tenth anniversary pressed against her throat in the water, a heavy gold riddle she couldn't solve anymore. *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?* The answer was supposed to be man, but lying there in the blue-black water, Elena knew better. The answer was *loss*.

Something splashed at the shallow end.

She treaded water, squinting through the darkness. A retriever — golden, judging by the shape — paddled toward her with clumsy determination. No collar. Just a dog swimming alone in a hotel pool at 2 AM, as confused and lost as she felt.

They met in the middle. The dog considered her with liquid brown eyes, then paddled closer, resting its chin on her shoulder. The weight was solid and real, everything David's words hadn't been in months.

"You tired too?" she whispered.

The dog sneezed.

Elena laughed — actually laughed — for the first time since the moving truck had pulled away from their house. She wrapped an arm around the dog's wet fur and let them both float there, suspended in the dark water, neither of them answering to anyone anymore.

The phone buzzed again. She didn't move to answer it. Some riddles weren't meant to be solved. Some endings weren't endings at all, but the beginning of something else — something wet and unknown and finally, finally hers.