The Weight of Water

The pool hadn't been drained since Richard died. Three months of stagnant water, a mirror that reflected nothing but her own hollow face each morning. Elena stood at the edge, coffee in hand, watching the surface shimmer in the dawn light. Somewhere beneath that oily sheen, the pool **cat**—Richard's absurdly named Persian—had met its end last summer. He'd buried it near the fence, weeping in a way he never had for his own mother.

"You're too attached to things that can't love you back," she'd told him then. The irony tasted bitter now.

The **dog**, a golden retriever named Buster, nosed her hand. He was Richard's running companion, his confidant. Now the animal paced the pool's perimeter daily, whining at certain spots, as if sensing something Elena couldn't. She'd considered giving him away—everything in this house was a reminder—but something stayed her hand. Maybe she deserved the haunting.

On the patio table, the **cable** bill lay unpaid for the fourth month. Richard had handled all the finances, all the mundane mechanics of living. Elena had been the sculptor, hands perpetually covered in clay, lost in worlds of her own creation. Now the clay sat hardening in the studio, and she couldn't remember the login for their bank account.

Her therapist suggested draining the pool. "Start small," the woman had said, as if grief were a home renovation project.

But at night, Elena sometimes imagined Richard beneath that dark **water**, preserved somehow, hair floating like seaweed, waiting for her to join him. The thought terrified her. The thought comforted her.

Buster barked sharply, breaking her trance. A neighbor's kid had thrown something over the fence—a ball, maybe. The dog splashed into the shallows, frantic.

Elena watched him paddle, absurdly joyful in his task. She thought about the clay waiting in her studio. How Richard had always urged her to make something real, something permanent. How she'd always replied that permanence was an illusion artists sold to people afraid of dying.

She set down her coffee and walked toward the house, leaving the pool to its ghosts. The clay would be soft again by now. She could shape something new. Not Richard. Not replacement. Something else entirely.

Behind her, Buster climbed out, shaking **water** everywhere, ball in his mouth, tail wagging. Life, inconvenient and relentless, went on.