The Pool Where We Drowned

Sheila lay on the chaise lounge by the pool, the orange sunset reflecting off the water like broken glass. The same pool where they'd celebrated their tenth anniversary, where Tim had proposed on bended knee with a diamond ring that now sat in a drawer. Now the pool was just a reminder of everything they'd lost.

Inside, the TV blared—some zombie apocalypse show Tim used to watch religiously. She'd never understood the appeal. The real monsters were the ones who lived inside your head, who ate away at your marriage from the inside out.

The cable bill sat unpaid on the kitchen counter for three months. Another thing they'd forgotten to care about.

She remembered the summer they'd painted the living room together, getting high on the fumes, laughing as Tim accidentally dipped his brush into a can of orange paint instead of the cream they'd picked out. "It's fine," he'd said, grinning. "It's bold. It's us."

They weren't us anymore. They were two people orbiting each other in the same house, passing like ships in the night.

Her phone buzzed. Mark from accounting. We should grab that drink sometime, his message read. She'd been half-hoping he'd ask. Half-dreading it too.

The baseball glove Tim had bought their son—before the accident, before the silence that filled their home like smoke—still hung in the garage. Joey would be twenty-two now. Old enough to understand why his father couldn't get out of bed some days. Old enough to forgive, maybe. But Tim had never given him the chance.

The zombie characters on television screamed. Sheila stood up, dipped her toes into the pool. The water was cold, shocking. Like waking up from a long dream.

She thought about Mark's message. About the unfinished painting in the living room. About the baseball glove gathering dust. About all the things they'd left undone, all the words they'd left unsaid until they'd turned sour inside them.

The orange sun dipped below the horizon. Tomorrow she would call Mark. Tomorrow she would finish the painting. Tomorrow she would ask Tim to dinner, really ask him, not just assume he'd say no.

But tonight, she watched the pool grow dark, and let herself remember what it felt like to drown.