The Zombie's Papaya

Mara hadn't been swimming since the funeral. Three months of grief heavy as water in her lungs, and here she was at a boutique resort in Costa Rica because her therapist insisted she needed to "reclaim her body." Whatever that meant.

The pool was empty at dawn, which was exactly how she wanted it. She slid into the cool water, letting it swallow her whole. When she emerged, gasping, she found herself face to face with a papaya on the poolside table—halved, glistening pink-orange in the sunrise, a lime wedge perched obscenely in its center like some tropical joke about fertility.

"You look like a zombie," said a voice from the palm fronds.

Mara turned. A woman emerged from the shadows, maybe thirty-five, with sharp features and eyes that had seen too much. She was holding a fox—actual, alive, orange-gold and panting—against her chest like an infant.

"Excuse me?"

"A zombie. The walking dead. I'd know." The woman sat at the adjacent lounge chair. The fox scrambled down and began sniffing at Mara's discarded towel. "I'm Elena. This is Fernando. He thinks he's a dog."

"Mara." She floated in the water, suddenly reluctant to climb out. "Is that a... fox?"

"Emotional support animal. My wife left me for a Pilates instructor, and apparently, this is where I am now." Elena's laugh was dry, cracked at the edges. "You?"

"Widowed. Brain aneurysm. He was thirty-four."

The silence stretched between them, heavy and intimate. In it, Mara found herself telling Elena things she hadn't spoken aloud: the rage, the relief, the way some mornings she woke up grateful not to have to consider anyone else's coffee order, then hated herself for it.

Elena listened, feeding Fernando pieces of papaya from her plate. The fox ate delicately, his paws leaving no prints on the white tablecloth.

"You know what they don't tell you about grief?" Elena said finally. "It doesn't get better. It just gets... different. Like learning to swim with one lung."

Mara pulled herself from the pool, water streaming off her body, and for the first time in months, she didn't feel like she was drowning. She reached for a piece of papaya. It was sweet, impossibly so, the kind of sweetness that almost hurts.

"I'm still a zombie," Mara said, around the fruit. "But maybe one of those fast ones from the new movies. The ones that can run."

Elena's smile was genuine this time. "Progress."