The Weight of Water

Margaret submerged herself in the apartment complex's pool at 2 AM, the chlorine stinging her eyes like the tears she'd refused to shed earlier. The water embraced her with the indifference she'd come to expect from the world since the miscarriage—cool, silent, holding everything without truly feeling anything.

She'd left David asleep in bed, or pretending to be. They hadn't really spoken in three weeks, not since the ultrasound technician had said, "I'm so sorry" with the rehearsed sympathy of someone who'd said it a thousand times before. Their conversations now circled like debris in a storm—work, groceries, whether the dog needed his annual shots, if the cat's thyroid medication was running low. Safe topics. Important topics. Anything but the thing that was destroying them.

The swimming had started as something to fill the sleepless hours. Now it was the only time she felt real, her body weightless for forty minutes at a time. Here, floating in the chemical blue, she could almost believe she was still carrying something.

She surfaced, gasping, and saw the silhouette of someone on a third-story balcony. A woman with a cigarette, watching her. Margaret thought about how odd she must look—middle-aged, swimming alone in the dark while everyone else slept.

"Everything okay down there?" the woman called.

Margaret treaded water, considering. The honest answer felt too heavy to carry up three floors.

"Just swimming," she called back instead.

The woman took a long drag. "My ex used to swim when he couldn't sleep. Said it was the only time his brain shut up."

Margaret let herself sink beneath the surface, holding her breath until her lungs burned. When she surfaced, the balcony was empty. Just the glowing ember of the cigarette, drifting toward the ground like a fallen star.

She climbed out of the pool, water streaming off her like the life she'd almost had. In their apartment, she found David sitting on the edge of their bed, the dog curled against his leg, the cat watching from the windowsill where she'd been watching Margaret swim from the living room window, probably for weeks.

"I can't do this anymore," David said, not looking at her. "Us."

"I know," she said, and realized she was relieved. "Me neither."

The dog whimpered. The cat resumed washing her paw. Outside, the pool ripled in the wind, empty and forgiving, holding nothing but water.