The Storm We Swallowed

The pool was black glass at 2 AM, the surface broken only by my own furious strokes. I was swimming laps like I could outrun the lawyer's email arriving tomorrow—division of assets, including the house, the savings, and him. Thunder rumbled somewhere distant, a warning I chose to ignore.

From the kitchen window, Priscilla the cat watched me with the disdainful judgment only a feline can properly convey. She'd been mine before the marriage; she'd remain mine after. But Barnaby—that Golden Retriever with the soulful eyes who currently whined at the sliding glass door—was Nathan's dog through and through. The court would probably grant him custody. Barnaby had always preferred him anyway.

Lightning cracked the sky open, turning the night white for one stark second. In that flash, I saw myself: thirty-five, divorcing before the first anniversary even arrived, swimming drunk in my soon-to-be-ex's pool while his pets looked on. The absurdity of it caught in my throat.

I tread water, watching the storm roll closer. Another strike—lightning spiderwebbing across the horizon—and suddenly I was fifteen again, in that lake in Wisconsin with Tommy. We'd been swimming at night just like this, and when lightning struck, he'd kissed me for the first time. The memory shouldn't have surfaced. It should have stayed buried with everything else I'd deliberately forgotten about the person I used to be.

Barnaby's whining grew frantic. He could sense the storm's approach better than I could. Something about pressure changes in their ears, Nathan had explained once, back when he explained things like he was teaching a class.

I swam to the edge and hauled myself out, dripping and shivering. The patio felt alien under my bare feet. Priscilla had abandoned her post. Barnaby was still pawing at the door, and suddenly I couldn't leave him there alone in the dark, scared.

"You're an idiot," I whispered to myself, sliding the door open.

Barnaby launched himself at me, wet fur against my wet skin, and for the first time in eight months, he didn't immediately pull away to find Nathan. He pressed his face into my neck, shivering.

The storm broke then—rain like fury, lightning like judgment, thunder like consequence. But I stood there holding my soon-to-be-ex-husband's dog, thinking about how I'd spent months swimming through resentment and grief, and how the shore had been here all along.

Some things you choose. Some things choose you. And some things—like the dog who suddenly decides you're worth trusting—you have to earn.