The Weight of Water

Marcus climbed utility pole #47 in the drizzle, his wet fingers slipping on the rough creosote. The cable he spliced—fiber optic, thin as a fishing line—carried a thousand conversations he'd never have. Thirty years up here, and his shoulders bore the ache like an old friend who'd overstayed their welcome.

He used to go swimming with Julie at the quarry every Sunday. She'd dive in surface-first, laughing, while he eased in, toes testing the cold. The water had preserved things—a rusted bicycle, a sunken boat, secrets. Julie had understood how to hold her breath. Not him. He needed air, needed words, needed to tell her how he felt the Sunday she stopped coming.

"Just a bear market, Mar, it'll turn," she'd said about his investments, about his life, about everything deferred.

Now his retirement fund was half gone, and the friend he'd never confessed his love to had moved to Seattle with someone who knew how to swim. Marcus stripped the cable's orange jacket, his fingers working the delicate glass threads inside. Below him, a woman walked a dog. Above, the sky pressed down gray and heavy.

He thought about diving into that quarry again, letting the water take what the years hadn't. Instead, he spliced the connection, fused the light, watched the little red continuity lamp glow. Down the pole, into his truck, home to an empty apartment where the television showed nothing but static.

Some weeks later, he drove to the quarry. No swimming today. Just sitting on the rocks, watching the water's dark surface. His phone buzzed—Julie. "I'm getting a divorce," she said. "I think about the quarry. I think about you."

Marcus threw a stone into the water. It didn't splash; it sank, like everything else he'd never said.

"Me too," he told her. "Me too."