What Remains in the Water

The papaya sat on the kitchen counter, its mottled yellow skin already giving slightly to the touch. Elena had bought it three days ago, back when they were still speaking. Now it overripe, much like everything else between them.

She found him by the pool—their pool, though he'd taken to calling it his lately. Marcus was sprawled on one of the loungers, phone in hand, shirtless despite the October chill. The pool lights cast rippling blue patterns across his bare back, transforming him into something almost mythical. Or perhaps that was just her memory coloring in the blanks she'd stopped trying to fill.

"You're still here," he said, not looking up from his screen.

"Leaving tomorrow."

"Ah."

The silence stretched, thin and worn as old elastic. Elena remembered when silences between them had been comfortable—when they could sit together for hours, hands barely touching, and feel complete. Now everything was negotiation, or avoidance, or the exhausted aftermath of both.

"There's a papaya on the counter," she said. "You should eat it before it rots."

Marcus finally glanced up, eyes unreadable in the artificial twilight. "You bought it."

"I know. I'm telling you to eat it anyway."

He laughed, short and sharp. "Always the planner, El. Even at the end."

"Not the end. Just the meantime."

The goldfish darted through the aquarium on the patio, orange and white flashes against dark water. She'd won it at a carnival five years ago—some ridiculous game where she'd thrown ping pong balls into fishbowls, drunk on cotton candy and new love. They'd named it Lucky, though they both knew the lifespan of carnival fish was measured in weeks, not years.

Lucky was still somehow alive, outlasting everything they'd built.

"You'll take care of Lucky?" she asked.

"Sure, El. I'll take care of the fish."

Neither of them mentioned that Lucky would probably outlast their separation too, swimming through its silent orbits as they learned to breathe separately.

The pool water lapped against the tiles, rhythmic and indifferent. Somewhere in the distance, a neighbor's laughter carried across the manicured lawns of their subdivision—everyone's marriage was either perfect or ending, sometimes both.

"I'm sorry," he said, finally setting down his phone.

"Me too."

"Not enough, though."

"No. Not enough."

Elena turned toward the house, toward the half-packed boxes in the bedroom, toward the papaya that would ripen without her. The goldfish would be fine. Marcus would be fine. She would be fine, eventually, in some other house with some other pool she hadn't chosen yet.

That night, she dreamed she was underwater, suspended in blue light, while something orange and bright swam just beyond her reach.