The Red Fox at Sunset

Margaret stood at the edge of the infinity pool, the water's surface perfectly still, reflecting the bruised purple of the twilight sky. She'd been at the resort for three days, waiting for David to join her. Three days of voicemails growing increasingly desperate, then increasingly curt, then silent.

She touched the stray gray hair at her temple—something she'd begun finding with alarming frequency since turning forty-five last month. David used to call them her "silver threads." Now he barely noticed when she walked into a room.

The concierge had mentioned a fox that sometimes appeared at dusk, scavenging near the cabanas. Margaret had laughed, imagining something cute and Disney-like. What emerged from the shadows of the landscaping was something else entirely—a lean, scarred creature with matted copper fur and one milky eye. It moved with a predator's economy, stopping to regard her with an intelligence that felt almost human.

"Same boat," she murmured.

The fox's ear twitched. Then it padded to the pool's edge, lapped up some water that had spilled onto the stone deck, and vanished back into the darkness without looking back.

Margaret's phone buzzed. David. Finally.

"Maggie, I can't come. Sarah's mom had a heart attack, and she needs me here."

Sarah. His twenty-six-year-old executive assistant whose emergency calls somehow always coincided with their anniversaries, their weekends away, their attempts to reconnect after the miscarriage that had hollowed them out from the inside.

"You're sleeping with her."

Silence. Then: "Maggie, don't do this. Not now."

"Not ever?" she whispered, and hung up before he could answer.

She walked back to the pool, stepped out of her sandals, and waded in fully clothed. The water was shockingly cold against her skin, shocking her awake in a way she hadn't felt in years. She floated on her back, staring up at the first stars piercing the darkness, and began to laugh—a low, fractured sound that built until she was crying, the salt water mixing with the pool's chlorine, the distinction between grief and release blurring until she couldn't tell which was which.

Somewhere in the distance, a fox barked—sharp, defiant, undeniably alive.