What the Water Took

Elena's gray hair had started appearing three months after David left—the strands like mornings she couldn't quite wake up from. She pulled one now, twisting it around her finger as she watched the dog, Buster, pace at the water's edge. He'd been David's dog first, a golden retriever with anxious eyes and a tendency to bolt at thunder. Now he was hers, though some mornings she wasn't sure who had been left behind.

They were at Lake Merritt, five a.m., the water still except for the ripple of a single duck. Running had been Elena's way to outrun the hollow space in her chest where a decade of marriage used to live. She'd signed up for the marathon—because that's what you did when your life fell apart at forty-one. You picked something impossible.

Buster stopped suddenly, ears perked. A woman stood at the shoreline ahead, dark hair slicked back wet, fully clothed. Elena slowed, something cold spreading through her veins that had nothing to do with the October air. The woman was facing the water, not moving.

"Hey," Elena called, jogging closer. "You okay?"

The woman turned. Her face was blotchy, eyes rimmed red. She looked like she'd been crying for hours.

"I was just," she swallowed, "I almost went in."

Elena stopped running. Buster trotted over and pressed his wet nose against the woman's hand.

"His name was Buster," Elena said, though she didn't know why she said it that way, like the past tense meant something.

The woman looked at the dog, then at Elena, really looked at her. "I lost my job yesterday. Twenty years. They sent security to walk me out."

The water lapped at the woman's shoes. Elena thought about all the mornings she'd almost not gotten up. All the runs she'd almost skipped.

"Come on," Elena said. "Let's walk."

They walked together in silence, Buster trailing behind, and when the sun finally rose over the water, neither woman was crying anymore. Some mornings, the running wasn't about escaping. Some mornings, it was just about learning how to stay.