What the Fox Knows

Elena sat by the pool at the Canyon Ridge Resort, her third gin and tonic sweating onto the glass table beside her. Mark was on the padel court, shouting something about a backhand that his business partner from Chicago would almost certainly miss. The sun was beginning to dip, casting long shadows across the water.

She watched a single goldfish gliding through the resort's decorative pond, orange and translucent, endlessly circling the same small space. Something about it made her chest ache.

"You look miles away."

Elena jumped. A woman in her thirties—Mark's assistant, maybe?—had settled into the adjacent lounge chair.

"Just thinking," Elena said.

"About Mark? He's quite something on that court."

"Yes. Quite something."

What Elena couldn't say: that she'd found the receipts three weeks ago. That she'd been waiting for the right moment to leave. That she'd booked a one-way ticket to Portland for tomorrow morning.

The sky was darkening in the west. A storm was moving in.

"Look," the assistant said, pointing. "A fox."

At the edge of the property, where the manicured lawn gave way to scrub, a fox stood watching them. Its coat was impossibly red against the dying grass. It looked impossibly calm.

"I've never seen one here before," the woman said. "Must be the drought."

"Or maybe," Elena said softly, "he's always been here. Watching."

Lightning forked across the sky, a sudden white scar. Thunder rolled in behind it.

Mark waved from the padel court, grinning, victorious in a game that didn't matter. He looked so proud. So completely unaware.

The fox turned and vanished into the brush without a sound.

Elena finished her drink and stood up. The storm was beginning to break. Somewhere, somehow, something wild was waiting.