The things we carry underwater

The orange plastic chairs around the pool had faded to the color of old bruises, same as everything else in this town. Marcus sat on the edge, his legs submerged in the tepid water, watching his daughter swimming laps with that relentless, desperate grace she'd inherited from her mother.

"You're missing the game," Sarah called out, dripping wet, pulling herself onto the deck beside him. "Baseball playoffs. Dad would've wanted us to watch."

Three years since the accident, and still they measured time against what their father would have wanted. Marcus felt that old familiar weight in his chest—not heavy exactly, just present. Like a bear hibernating in his ribcage, waking occasionally to stretch against his lungs.

"The cable's out anyway," he said. "Some storm knocked out the line last night. Haven't called the company."

She studied him with those too-perceptive eyes. "You could call."

"Could."

"But you won't."

Marcus stood up, water streaming down his legs. At forty-two, he'd learned that some things you didn't fix. You just let them stay broken until they became part of the landscape.

"Remember when Dad took us to that Cubs game?" Sarah asked suddenly. "When I was seven, and I caught that foul ball?"

"You were terrified. That ball came at you like a cannonshot."

"I still have it. In my apartment. In a shoebox with all the other things I can't throw away."

She looked at him then, really looked at him, and Marcus realized she wasn't talking about baseball at all. They were both swimming in the same deep water, carrying the same sunken things. Their father's absence. Their mother's quiet deterioration. The way their own lives had stalled somewhere in their thirties, too afraid to move forward, too guilty to move back.

"The cable guy comes Tuesday," Marcus said finally. "Maybe we'll watch something then."

Sarah smiled, small and understanding. "Maybe."

They sat there as the sun went down, two people who'd forgotten how to be whole, waiting in the fading orange light for something—anything—to remind them how to surface.