The Pool at Midnight

The water was still, reflecting moonlight like spilled mercury. Elena stood at the edge of the apartment complex pool, clutching her father's old fedora hat—a relic she'd retrieved from his hospice room three hours after he passed. The hat smelled of tobacco and regret, a combination that felt increasingly familiar.

"You're going to jump in with that?" Marcus's voice cut through the humidity. He emerged from the shadows, shirtless, bearing two whiskey glasses like a peace offering. Or perhaps a weapon.

Elena accepted the glass. "I might."

"It's November, El. The pool's closed."

"So is my father's estate. So is my heart, apparently."

Marcus flinched—good. She wanted him to feel something, anything, since their anniversary dinner had ended with him admitting he'd been sterile since birth, meaning the miscarriage she'd mourned for two years couldn't have been his child at all.

A fox darted between the adjacent buildings, orange fire against black night. It paused at the pool's edge, lapping water with a grace that made Elena feel clumsy in her grief.

"Your mother's fox?" Marcus asked quietly.

"Maybe. They all look like her. Sly and beautiful and impossible to catch."

Marcus set down his glass. "I can bear a lot of things, El. Your silence, your father's disapproval, even your father's funeral happening on what should've been our third anniversary. But I can't bear you standing at the edge of this pool at midnight in November like you're considering—"

"Like I'm considering what? Finding out if the water's deep enough to drown everything else?"

The fox vanished. The water stilled. Elena pressed the hat to her chest, feeling the phantom weight of a pregnancy that had never been his, of a father who'd never approved, of a marriage that might never recover.

She took Marcus's hand. The water remained untested. Some depths, she decided, were best left unmeasured.