The Pool Where We Drowned

The water in the hotel pool was that perfect, improbable turquoise that exists nowhere in nature. Marie sat on the edge, legs dangling in, while I watched from the lounge chair where I'd been pretending to read the same paperback for three days. Our marriage hadn't ended with shouting or dishes thrown against walls. It had ended in this very pool three months ago, when she'd looked at me across the surface of the water and said, 'I don't think I love you anymore,' with the same casual tone she'd use to comment on the weather.

Now we were here, supposedly trying to 'work on things,' though the only thing being worked on was the slow excavation of whatever remained between us.

A golden retriever bounded past, trailing a bright red leash. A young woman chased after it, laughing, calling him Buster. I watched them and thought: we used to have a dog. We'd agreed to wait until we were 'ready,' as if readiness were a state you could choose rather than something that descended on you like weather or illness. We never became ready.

Marie climbed out of the pool. Water slicked her skin like oil. She squeezed her hair out, droplets falling on the concrete deck, and I remembered how she used to do that in our bathroom, how I'd watch the water run down her back and think: this is happiness, this ordinary moment.

'I ordered room service,' she said, not meeting my eyes. 'They're bringing champagne.'

'Champagne,' I repeated. 'For what?'

'For trying.' She finally looked at me, and the weight of all our years together sat in her eyes like silt.

Palm fronds rustled above us in the artificial breeze of the resort's fans. I thought about the palm reader we'd seen on a honeymoon beach in Mexico, how she'd told us our life line was long and intertwined. I'd believed her. Marie had too, I think.

The champagne arrived, wheeled in on a silver cart by a waiter who seemed painfully aware he was intruding. The cable knitting the bottles together tinkled as he uncorked them. I took a glass, watched the bubbles rise like tiny prayers.

'To trying,' Marie said, and we clinked glasses. Her hand brushed mine and didn't pull away.

I looked at the pool again—still that impossible turquoise, still waiting to hold whatever we were willing to give it. 'To trying,' I said, and for the first time in three months, I almost believed it.