The Weight of Water

Mara had been swimming every morning since Julian left, cutting through the water at 5 AM when the pool was still and the fluorescent lights hummed overhead. She liked the way the water swallowed sound, how she could disappear beneath the surface for seconds at a time, suspended in that blue silence where nothing could reach her—not the empty apartment, not the boxes she still hadn't unpacked after three weeks, not the pitying looks from her coworkers when they thought she wasn't watching.

The dog, Buster, waited for her on the deck chair. Julian's dog, technically, though he'd left Buster behind with a muttered something about travel and his new bachelor apartment in the city. Buster rested his chin on his paws and watched her swim, back and forth, lap after lap, until her muscles burned and her vision blurred.

Tonight, she stood in the kitchen eating papaya from a bowl, the juice running down her wrist. Julian had always hated papaya—said it tasted like feet, whatever that meant. She'd never bought it when they were together, a decade of accommodating preferences she hadn't examined until now. The cable bill sat on the counter, the final notice bright red against the white paper. She'd been ignoring it for weeks, along with everything else.

Buster whined from the doorway, and Mara set down the papaya. "What?" she asked the dog. "What do you want from me?"

He just watched her with those liquid brown eyes, and suddenly she was crying, sliding down the kitchen cabinets onto the cold tile floor. Buster came over and rested his head in her lap, and she buried her face in his fur, smelling pool chlorine and something living, something warm.

"I don't know how to do this," she whispered to the empty kitchen. "I don't know how to be alone."

But she was already learning, wasn't she? Swimming alone, eating papaya, letting the cable get cut off. Small rebellions. Buster licked her hand, and Mara wiped her face with the back of her arm. Tomorrow she'd pay the bill. Tomorrow she'd call the vet about Buster's shots. Tomorrow she'd keep swimming until she learned to float instead of sink.

For now, she sat on the kitchen floor and let herself cry, the dog pressed against her side, both of them waiting for whatever came next.