What Remains in the Water

Margaret stood at the kitchen counter, her hands working the spinach by rote. The leaves were already wilting under the warm tap water, and she thought about how she'd lied to David this morning — told him she was going to yoga, then driven to the YMCA instead. Three months now, and he hadn't noticed the chlorine smell that lingered in her hair.

She'd started swimming after she found the texts. There was something about being underwater, the muffled world, the way her body became something functional rather than something to be looked at or judged. She was thirty-eight, and she'd spent the past decade becoming the kind of wife who organized dinner parties and knew which wines complemented which dishes. Now she swam laps until her muscles burned, climbed out of the pool feeling stripped clean.

Her phone lit up on the counter. David's brother, asking if she wanted tickets to the baseball game Saturday. The company box. He'd said 'you and David,' but David was working late again. Or that's what he claimed. Margaret had stopped asking. She used to love baseball — the patience of it, the way a single moment could change everything — but she hadn't been to a game since before the wedding. She'd outgrown that version of herself, or buried her, or something.

She dropped the spinach into the pan. It sizzled.

The truth was, she didn't know who she was anymore. She was a woman who swam alone in fluorescent-lit pools at 6 AM. Who made dinner for a husband who might be sleeping with someone from his office. Who had, that morning, Googled divorce lawyers and then closed the browser tab with shaking hands.

She'd get back in the water tomorrow. In the water, everything was simple. Stroke, breathe, stroke. The only thing that mattered was not stopping. And when she finally dragged herself out, dripping and exhausted, she felt like she could maybe keep doing this — whatever this was — for another day. Spinach for dinner. Baseball she'd pretend to care about. A marriage hollowed out like a swimmer's lungs, expanded to hold something she couldn't name.

She turned off the burner. The spinach was overcooked, like everything else.