Water Under the Bridge

The plastic orange chair groaned under me as I sat watching Jeremy's baseball practice, the same one I'd occupied every Tuesday for three years. His father stood near the dugout, the bullish confidence that had once attracted me now radiating off him in waves, shouting encouragement to our son in that voice I used to find charming.

A goldfish darted through my memory—Banner, the carnival prize we'd won on our first date, lived three months longer than our marriage. I'd flushed him down the toilet during the week David moved out, watching the water spiral away with something like resentment.

'There's my boy!' David bellowed, and Jeremy's face lit up. That was the cruelty of it: David was still such a good father. The kids didn't care about his late nights at the office, the emotional distance that had grown between us like algae in a stagnant tank. They only knew he showed up for the games.

The coach called a water break, and Jeremy jogged over, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. I handed him his bottle.

'You okay, Mom?' he asked, and I realized my smile had slipped.

'Fine,' I said, adjusting my orange sunglasses against the glare. 'Just thinking.'

David caught my eye from across the field. For a second, something unreadable passed between us—not love, not hate, but the complicated recognition of two people who'd once promised forever and now only shared custody of Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

The sun dipped lower, painting the sky in bruised purples and golds. I watched Jeremy return to the field, already taller than he'd been last season. Children grew, marriages ended, life moved forward in its relentless way. The past was just water under the bridge, always flowing away, and none of us ever really learned to swim against the current.