What We Bear

The swimming pool at the YMCA was nearly empty at 6 AM, which was exactly why Mara liked it. At forty-three, she'd earned the right to choose her battles, and public bathing areas ranked somewhere just above her annual performance review. But the water was her church—a place where gravity's cruel suggestions about what she must bear were suspended, if only briefly.

She was halfway through her laps when she saw him: the zombie in lane three.

That's what she called him, anyway. He'd been coming to the same time slot for six months, moving through the water with the grim determination of the undead. Gray hair, pale skin, eyes that seemed focused on something three decades distant. He reminded her of her father, in the months before the diagnosis finally gave them a name for what they were losing.

Mara's phone buzzed on the deck. A spy notification from one of those apps her friend Renee had insisted she install—something about catching cheaters by tracking their partners' locations. She'd downloaded it during her brief, catastrophic reconciliation with Mark, then never deleted it. The notification showed his current location: a coffee shop across town.

That was new. Mark, the man who'd once texted her from the bathroom during their second anniversary dinner to complain about the wait time, was suddenly somewhere he couldn't possibly be—unless he'd learned to teleport.

She'd known, of course. The late nights. The new cologne. The way he'd started calling her "buddy" in that tone that suggested she'd become more sibling than spouse. She just hadn't been ready to face it—the paperwork, the conversations, the pitiful looks from friends who'd warned her three years ago.

The zombie in lane three swam past her, and she noticed something she hadn't before: he was smiling. Not much, but the corners of his eyes crinkled with something like amusement. He caught her looking and nodded, a small acknowledgment of their shared predawn misery.

Her phone buzzed again. The spy app updated—Mark was still at the coffee shop. Probably with her. The fox-redhead from his office, the one who always brought gluten-free muffins to department meetings and laughed too loudly at his jokes.

Mara pushed off the wall and dove back into the water. This lap, she swam harder, faster, until her lungs burned and the world narrowed to the rhythmic slice of her body through the water. She could file for divorce. Could confront him tonight, demand explanations he'd only half-provide.

But the water held her, weightless and clear, and in that moment she understood something about survival. Some things had to die so others could live. She wasn't a victim of Mark's betrayals—she was a participant in her own unhappiness, swimming laps in a pool she'd chosen.

She surfaced, gasping, and found the zombie watching her. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say: finally.

Mara smiled back. Tomorrow she'd call a lawyer. Tomorrow she'd cancel the spy app. Tomorrow she'd maybe even learn this stranger's name. But today, she had twenty more minutes in the water, and for the first time in years, she felt exactly as heavy as she needed to be.