The Vitamin in the Water

Margot stood at the edge of the apartment complex pool at dawn, the water flat as glass. The vitamin bottle in her pocket pressed against her hip—doctor's orders, he'd said, after the miscarriage. Take them with breakfast. She hadn't eaten in three days.

The pool lights flickered off just as she slipped into the water. The shock of cold tasted like iron. She began swimming laps, counting strokes like rosary beads, trying to outdistance the hollow ache in her chest.

At lap twelve, she saw him—a man in the neighboring courtyard, shaking a white bottle onto his palm. Vitamin D, maybe. Or something stronger. Their eyes caught through the fence, and she almost stopped swimming, almost exposed herself to the air, but something in his weary expression made her keep going.

The third time she saw him, a week later, he stood at the pool gate as she hauled herself out, dripping and exhausted.

"You swim like you're drowning," he said.

"Maybe I am."

He held out his hand. "David. I'm on immunosuppressants. My liver's failing."

"Margot. I'm supposed to be taking prenatal vitamins."

They sat on the pool edge, feet dangling in the water, both holding things they couldn't swallow. Somewhere between dawn and proper morning, between his impending transplant and her hollowed-out womb, they found something like belonging.

Six months later, she still takes the vitamins—uses them as paperweights now. David's new liver works. They swim together sometimes, not drowning anymore, just moving through something that feels almost like peace, almost like forward, both of them finally learning to float.