The Pool at the Ojai

The pool was empty at 6 AM, just as she'd hoped. Elena slipped into the water, the cool shock of it waking her nerves before her thoughts could catch up. This was her third morning at the Ojai Wellness Retreat—three days of meditation, vegan meals, and the kind of silence that made your own voice seem unfamiliar.

She'd been taking a vitamin D supplement every morning since the divorce. Dr. Patel said her levels were critically low, but Elena knew better. It wasn't the sun she was missing.

Her sister was watching Buster. The cat had been Marco's idea, a compromise when they decided they weren't ready for kids. Now Buster was nine, arthritic, and increasingly Elena's sole companion. She missed his terrible yowling at 3 AM, the way he'd stare at the wall like he saw ghosts there. Maybe he did.

"You're going to find yourself," her therapist had said, prescribing this retreat like it was a prescription. But Elena wasn't lost. She was right here, forty-two years old, learning to sleep alone again, understanding that the person she'd been for fifteen years had simply ceased to exist when Marco moved out.

She swam laps, counting strokes. Something rippled beneath her—a flash of orange. A goldfish, somehow surviving in the chlorinated water, darting between her legs. It shouldn't be alive. None of this should.

Elena tread water, watching it. The fish kept swimming, oblivious to its own impossibility. She thought about telling the front desk, but then someone would come to remove it. To fix what didn't belong.

"Good luck, little guy," she whispered, and pulled herself toward the ladder.

Back in her room, she dry-swallowed her vitamin. Her phone buzzed—a text from Marco. Buster wasn't eating. Did she know if the new food had been ordered? She typed back a detailed response about the grain-free brand from the pet store, the one with the salmon.

Then she deleted it and wrote: "Yes. He'll be fine."

Outside her window, the pool glittered in the morning light. The goldfish was still down there, swimming in its hostile world, making a life somewhere it wasn't supposed to be. Elena lay down on the yoga mat and closed her eyes. She could learn to do that too.