The Weight of Water

Mara watched him from the balcony, her husband chest-deep in the resort pool, doing laps with that same relentless efficiency he applied to everything. Even on vacation, David was swimming toward something invisible, some finish line only he could see.

The papaya at breakfast had been perfect—sweet, musky, faintly fermented—but David hadn't tasted it. He'd been too busy checking emails, the charging cable from his laptop snaking across the white tablecloth like a reminder of the life they couldn't escape.

"You're not really here," she'd said yesterday, after a fight about something she couldn't remember anymore. Just that the words had hung between them, heavier than the humid tropical air.

Now he was back in the water, slicing through the surface while she sat with her phone, scrolling through photos of other people's lives. The cable on the nightstand had recharged his phone overnight, another tether to a world that demanded constant attention.

David emerged from the pool, water streaming from his body. He looked up at her, and for a second she saw something real in his eyes—fear, perhaps, or the same exhausted recognition that the distance between them had grown too wide to bridge with vacations or promises.

"Come swim with me," he called up, and she thought about saying no, about letting another moment pass. But instead she set down her phone, left the cable behind, and walked toward the water.