The Weight of Water

The pool was empty at 5 AM, just how Elena liked it. She'd been swimming every morning for three years, ever since the miscarriage, since her marriage had become something she performed rather than lived. Fifty laps, back and forth, while Mark slept downstairs on the couch he'd claimed as his own.

This morning was different. As she pulled herself from the water, dripping and breathless, she saw him in the pool house doorway—a stranger, really, though she'd been married to him for twelve years. He held their old padel rackets, the ones they'd bought on that hopeful trip to Barcelona before everything fell apart.

"Remember these?" he asked. His voice sounded rough, unused. Like he'd been speaking only to himself lately.

Elena wrapped a towel around herself. "I haven't thought about padel in years."

"I was thinking," he said, "maybe we're both zombies now. Just walking through it, you know? The house, the jobs, the silence." He gestured vaguely with the racket. "I looked at us in the mirror yesterday and thought: when did we start rotting from the inside?"

Their golden retriever, Buster, who'd been Elena's confidant in the bathroom crying sessions, nudged Mark's leg. Mark crouched down, buried his face in the dog's fur. When he looked up, his eyes were wet.

"I don't want to be dead while I'm still alive, El. I don't think you do either."

The morning light hit the water just so, making everything shimmer and blur. Elena thought about all the mornings she'd spent in this pool, moving her arms and legs, going nowhere and everywhere at once. She thought about how easy it would be to keep doing exactly this—swimming through her own life, never touching bottom.

Instead, she took the racket he offered.

"I haven't played in years," she said. "I'll probably be terrible."

"Me too," Mark said. "We can learn together. Again."

Buster barked once, sharp and excited, as if he understood this was something worth waking up for.