The Serve

Maya stood at the baseline of the padel court, sweat slicking her grip on the racquet. Across the net, David's smile didn't reach his eyes. They'd been coming here every Tuesday for three months, ever since the fertility specialist had suggested they 'find ways to relieve stress.' What he'd meant was: stop trying so hard. What Maya heard was: your desperation is unseemly.

'Your turn,' David called, bouncing the ball.

Maya stepped forward, her movement precise, controlled. She'd stopped letting herself feel anything on the court. It was safer that way. The ball connected with her racquet, a clean sharp sound, and sailed past David's outstretched arm.

'Jesus,' he laughed, shaking his head. 'You don't hold back, do you?'

She didn't answer. Afterward, they sat at the club restaurant. David ordered steak and eggs. Maya asked for the spinach salad, hold the dressing. The server raised an eyebrow—she'd ordered the same thing every week—and Maya felt that familiar flush of shame. She wasn't hungry anyway. Not since the third failed IUI cycle.

David reached across the table, palm up, waiting for her hand. When she didn't take it, his hand faltered, then withdrew to pick at his eggs.

'My sister called,' he said. 'She's pregnant again.' He said it casually, like he was commenting on the weather. Maya's chest tightened. 'She asked about us.' He paused. 'What do I tell her, Maya?' The question hung between them, heavier than the humidity pressing against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Outside, a palm tree bent in the gathering wind. The sky had turned a bruised purple, clouds gathering like an unspoken thought. She remembered David's palm, warm and dry, when they'd first met. How she'd pressed her own against his and imagined a future that now felt like someone else's life.

'Tell her we're playing padel,' Maya said. 'Tell her we're relieved.' The lie tasted like something rotten in her mouth.

Lightning fractured the sky, sudden and blinding. For a moment, everything illuminated—the club's empty courts, the darkened pool, David's strained expression, her own hands clenched in her lap. Then darkness returned, heavier than before.

'Is that enough?' David asked quietly. 'Is this enough?' He meant the life they had, the one that didn't include a child. The one where they played padel on Tuesdays and pretended they weren't dying inside.

Maya looked at him—really looked—at the lines around his eyes, the way his shoulders slumped, the exhaustion they both carried like a second skin. She thought about the spinach wilting in her refrigerator, the unpainted nursery they'd stopped pretending wasn't a storage room, the calculated silence between them.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I don't know anymore.' Outside, thunder rattled the glass. The storm had finally broken. Something was going to have to give.