The Papaya Storm

Maya hadn't planned to spend her forty-second birthday alone at a Caribbean resort, but here she was, nursing a rum punch while the afternoon sun beat down on the infinity pool.

She watched as other guests lounged like beached whales, their skin glistening with coconut oil and false contentment. The papaya on her breakfast plate that morning had been perfectly ripe—sweet, yielding, the color of a fresh bruise. It had reminded her of how Richard used to kiss her neck, gentle and insistent, before everything went wrong.

"Swimming laps in this heat?" a voice cut through her reverie.

Maya turned to find a man who looked like he'd been carved from mahogany and regret. His smile didn't reach his eyes, which were the color of storm clouds.

"Clears my head," she lied, standing up. The water beckoned—cool, chlorinated escape.

"I'm Elias," he said, falling into step beside her. "Here for my brother's wedding. Third marriage, second wife."

"Maya. Here to forget my marriage ended."

They stood at the pool's edge, toes curling over the lip. The water stretched before them, deceptively calm. Without speaking, they dove in, slicing through the cool blue, the only sounds their rhythmic breathing and water sluicing over skin.

For twenty minutes they swam in tandem, shoulder to shoulder, an intimacy more profound than sex. When they surfaced, gasping, the sky had turned purple-black.

"Storm's coming," Elias said, water dripping from his eyelashes.

The first lightning bolt cracked across the horizon as they climbed out, seconds before the heavens opened. They ran for cover beneath a palapa, rain sheeting down around them, plastering clothes to skin.

"My wife loved papaya," Elias said suddenly, his voice raw. "She died two years ago today. Car accident."

Maya reached for his hand, found it trembling. "Richard's marrying his assistant. Three weeks from now."

Lightning illuminated the pool—now a churning gray beast—and their faces, stark with grief and something else stirring beneath it.

"Funny," Maya said, "how we're both here, swimming through other people's tragedies while drowning in our own."

Elias laughed, a broken, beautiful sound. "Want to get drunk and pretend we're brave enough to try again?"

"Only if we can have more papaya tomorrow," she said, and when he kissed her in the next flash of lightning, it tasted like rain and second chances.