What the Palm Hides

The papaya sat between us on the breakfast table, halved and glistening, its black seeds like tiny eyes watching our marriage die. Maria pushed her half away with the back of her hand, her palm pressing against the white tablecloth as if grounding herself.

"I'm not hungry," she said.

The sunrise over the ocean turned everything orange — the sand, the water, the pathetic hope I'd been clinging to for six months. This resort in the Maldives was my attempt at resuscitation, a last-ditch effort using salt water and silence.

"You used to love papaya," I said, sounding like a stranger even to myself.

"That was before. Before the promotion. Before the assistant. Before you started coming home smelling like someone else's perfume."

Her voice was flat, devoid of the fury she'd once displayed. The rage had burned itself out, leaving only ash.

I watched her walk to the pool, her sarong fluttering. She didn't look back.

The resort was nearly empty at dawn. I followed her to the infinity edge, where the water seemed to spill endlessly into the ocean. Maria was already swimming, her strokes smooth and methodical, cutting through the turquoise silence.

I waded in, the salt-chlorinated shock of it waking something in me. For twenty minutes, we swam separately in the same pool, two people who had promised forever now unable to bridge ten feet of water.

When I finally reached the side, gasping, she was perched on the edge, her legs dangling in the water. The sun had risen higher now. Her skin glowed.

"I filed the papers yesterday," she said, not looking at me. "Before we got on the plane."

Something inside me collapsed. "Why come on this trip, then?"

"Because I needed to see if there was anything left to save." She turned, her eyes searching my face. "There isn't, is there?"

I looked at my hands, pruned from the water, at the papaya still sitting on our breakfast table in the distance, black seeds exposed. "No," I said. "There isn't."

We spent the rest of the vacation swimming separately. Back home, I sometimes buy papaya at the grocery store, cut it open, and remember how some things look perfect until you slice them open.