What Remains in the Water

Marisa stood at the edge of the pool, her toes curled against the cool concrete. The backyard was strange without Buster — Richard's golden retriever, now hers through some cruel twist of probate law. The dog nosed at her ankle, confused by her stillness, by the way she'd been staring at the water for twenty minutes.

The papaya sat on the patio table where Richard had left it that morning, two days before his heart decided to quit. Fully ripe. Perfectly golden. He'd been so proud of finding it at the specialty grocer, had planned to cut it open for breakfast, had told her with that devastating tenderness he'd perfected: "Life's too short for bad fruit, Mar."

Now the fruit sat there, gathering flies, while she learned to navigate the pool's filter system and the dog's separation anxiety and the hollow silence of a house that smelled like someone else's life choices.

"He's not coming back," she whispered, testing the words. The dog whined, pressing his warm side against her leg. She thought about how Richard had bought this house with its kidney-shaped pool and tropical ambitions because he'd wanted to believe in some version of forever. How he'd dragged her to those tiki bars in their thirties, ordered drinks with umbrellas, pretended they weren't both drowning in student loans and the mounting certainty that they'd missed their turn toward happiness.

The papaya had started to soften, collapse in on itself. Soon it would rot. Soon she'd have to throw it away.

Marisa stripped to her underwear — Richard's old boxers, actually, she'd been wearing them for days — and stepped into the pool. The water was shocking, perfect, alive. The dog barked from the edge, pacing, distressed, before leaping in after her.

They treaded water together as the sun went down, the papaya watching from the table like some judge of her grief. In the morning, she decided, she would cut it open. She would eat every bite. She would learn to balance the pH in this godforsaken pool. She would call a real estate agent.

The dog paddled toward her, and for the first time since Richard died, she didn't feel like she was drowning.