Weightless at the EconoLodge

The pool at the EconoLodge was supposed to close at dusk, but Meredith had found the side gate unlatched again. Probably the same teenager who'd been leaving it cracked for weeks—the same one she'd watched smoking behind the dumpster from her second-floor window, her orange hair glowing like ember in the parking lot lights.

Meredith kicked off her slides and stepped into the water. It was warmer than she expected, heated by the Texas sun even at midnight. She'd been coming here every night since the funeral, swimming laps until her arms burned and her mind went quiet, until she couldn't hear her mother's voice in her head anymore.

_Take care of him, Mer. You're the responsible one._

She pushed off the wall, stroke after stroke, counting to herself like a child. One-two-breathe, one-two-breathe. Her marriage had dissolved somewhere around lap forty-two three nights ago, when she'd climbed back into their hotel bed smelling of chlorine and Paul had whispered, "I can't do this anymore," his voice cracking like he'd been the one swimming for hours.

The real estate market had crashed six months ago. Their savings were gone. Their house was gone. Her brother—the one who was supposed to be the responsible one—had disappeared with what was left of the inheritance two weeks before their mother's stroke. Meredith shouldered it all. That was what she did. She bore it.

A splash echoed from the deep end. Meredith stopped mid-stroke, treading water as her heart hammered against her ribs. The security light flickered on, illuminating a figure at the pool's edge—a man, maybe sixty, lowering himself slowly into the water.

"Sorry," he said, his voice rough. "Thought I was alone."

"Me too," Meredith said.

He floated onto his back, staring up at the few stars visible through the light pollution. "My wife died Tuesday," he said. "This was her favorite place when we traveled. She made me promise to keep coming to pools, even without her. Said water was the only place she ever felt weightless."

Meredith swam closer, suddenly weightless herself—not from the water, but from the unburdening.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I lost my mother last month."

They floated there in silence as the EconoLodge sign hummed above them, two strangers bearing witness to each other's grief in the orange glow of the parking lot, drifting together in the warm water, finally able to breathe.