The Last Dive

The pool at the Oakwood Apartments hadn't been cleaned in months. Green algae scum floated on the surface like a ghost of the summer that never was. Maya stood at the edge, clutching a half-empty bottle of cheap merlot, watching the way the security light reflected off the murk. Downstairs, somewhere on the third floor, a baseball game blared through someone's window—the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, the announcer's voice narrating a life she wasn't living.

"You gonna jump or what?" The voice came from behind her. Jack. Of course it was Jack.

She turned slowly. He was sitting on a lounge chair, shirtless in the October chill, smoking a cigarette she didn't know he'd started again. Between them, a thick black cable snaked across the concrete—maintenance had been working on the wiring all week. Half the building had lost internet. The other half had lost their minds.

"Remember our wedding?" Maya asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "That hotel in Cancún with the sphinx statue by the entrance? You made me take a picture in front of it. You said it was romantic."

Jack stubbed out his cigarette. "We were kids, Maya. We didn't know what romantic was."

"The sphinx had a riddle," she continued, ignoring him. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening. Remember?"

"Man. That's the answer. Man."

"No." Maya stepped closer to the pool's edge. "The answer is time. And the riddle is about what time does to you." She looked down at the murky water. "We had something once. Something real. Now I can't even remember the last time we touched each other without flinching."

The baseball game downstairs erupted in applause. Someone had hit a home run. Somewhere, somewhere, someone was winning.

"I'm leaving, Jack. After the lease is up."

He didn't look up. "Yeah. I figured."

Maya set down her wine bottle. She thought about diving into that green, filthy pool—just once, just to feel something besides this endless drowning on dry land. Instead she turned and walked back toward their apartment, stepping over the cable that couldn't connect them anymore. Behind her, the sphinx of her marriage asked its riddle into the dark, and nobody answered.