The Weight of Water

The last thing she said to me was that I was drowning in air, that I didn't know how to breathe through grief. Standing here three months later, staring at the estate agent across the polished mahogany desk, I finally understood what she meant. His palm pressed against the glass of the wedding photo we were selling—a rectangular snapshot of two people who no longer existed—and I watched his thumb trace the edge of my wife's smile.

"The market's favorable for beachfront properties," he said, not looking up. "Though I should mention, the new owners might not want the dog."

Buster lay at my feet, his silver muzzle resting on my sneakers. He was old now, arthritic and smelling of seawater and sleep. She'd found him swimming toward us during that hurricane in '08, a puppy fighting currents that should have killed him. She'd waded in fully clothed, coral prom dress and all, and carried him back like a holy thing. Now he lifted his head, whining softly, and I realized he'd been waiting for her return longer than I had.

"He comes with the house," I heard myself say. The agent looked up, surprised. "The dog. He's eighteen. He doesn't have much time left, and he spent it all on that porch watching for her. If you sell this place to someone who doesn't understand that, I'll burn it down myself."

The air conditioning hummed. A fly banged against the window. I thought of her palm against my cheek that last morning, the coolness of her skin, the way she'd whispered, "You've never learned to swim, have you?" Not in water—she knew I loved the ocean. In life. In uncertainty. In the thick murky middle of things where the bottom drops away and you have to trust that you'll float.

Outside, palm fronds rattled in the trade winds. I signed the papers. Buster stood, stiff and careful, and we walked out into the blinding white light of a Caribbean noon, leaving behind the house where she'd lived and died, leaving behind the ghost of the man I'd been when she loved me. The ocean waited just beyond the property line. I'd never really learned to swim, I thought. But maybe it was time I started trying.