The Weight of Empty Chlorine

The pool sat vacant at 3 AM, its surface a still blue mirror under the humming security lights. Elena had finally stopped texting him. Three weeks of silence since she'd walked out with her suitcases, leaving only her half-used bottle of conditioner in the shower and the lingering scent of gardenia on his pillowcases.

Marcus let himself into the community center with his stolen key card—privileges of being head of maintenance for twelve years. He needed this. The water would be cold, shocking him out of the numbness that had settled in his chest like wet concrete.

His father had been the one to teach him to swim, in a lake up north where the water was dark and you couldn't see your feet. Old Bear, they'd called him—not for his size but for his tendency to hibernate through everything difficult. His mother's death, Marcus's failed marriage, his own diagnosis. Bear just retreated into the garage with his baseball memorabilia and emerged only for games on television.

Marcus slid into the pool, gasping as the chlorine bit at his skin. He began to swim, stroke after stroke, counting the laps like his father had counted runs during those endless televised games. Bear had been dead six months now, and Marcus still found himself waiting for the phone to ring, for that gravelly voice asking if he'd caught the bottom of the ninth.

He stopped at the deep end, treading water as something shifted in his chest. Bear had never learned to swim properly. Too afraid of what lurked beneath. So he'd stayed in the shallow end, safe and stagnant, until the end.

Marcus pulled himself from the pool, water streaming from his body like he was washing off the last six months. He needed to call his sister tomorrow. Maybe go through the boxes of baseball cards still sitting in his father's garage.

The security light flickered as he locked up behind him, the chlorine smell already fading into the night air.