What the Cat Knew

The cat appeared at dusk, padding silently across the terra cotta tiles where Elena sat nursing her third gin and tonic. It was a scrawny thing, patchy gray fur and one ear that refused to stand upright. She'd seen it that morning, too, watching from beneath a palm frond as Marcus laughed at something the redhead from reception said. Something he'd never laughed at with Elena in seven years of marriage.

The resort pool glowed turquoise in the gathering dark, empty now. Earlier, children had screamed while Marcus sat on his phone, thumb typing, thumb deleting. Elena had learned to recognize the rhythm of messages he didn't want her to see.

"Go away," she told the cat, but it only wound itself around her ankles, purring like a small engine.

Marcus was in their room now, showering. Or maybe he was on the balcony, smoking again, though he'd promised to quit. The cat jumped onto her chair, settled in her lap as if invited. Its heartbeat against her palm was impossibly fast, a frantic rhythm.

She'd found the receipt in his pocket yesterday. A necklace. Not her birthday. Not their anniversary. Three months from now, the redhead's birthday according to her Instagram.

The cat stared up at her with ancient, knowing eyes. Animals sensed these things. Divorce had a scent, like fear, like the metallic tang of her own guilt—the lunches with Thomas, the messages she drafted and deleted, the way she'd started choosing her underwear with Marcus in mind, then Thomas, then neither.

"We're all just pretending," she whispered to the cat.

Marcus's key card clicked in the door lock.

The cat leaped from her lap and vanished beneath the palm tree. Marcus stepped onto the balcony, freshly showered, smelling of coconut soap and someone else's perfume.

"Beautiful night," he said, not meeting her eyes. "Want to go for a swim?"

The pool lights flickered on, casting long shadows across the water. Elena finished her drink, tasting gin and something like surrender.

"Why not," she said, and wondered if the cat would watch them drown.