What We Bear

The pool at the Casa de Sol was empty except for me and the floating leaves of something—spinach, I realized, from the salad I'd dropped two hours ago when Jonathan told me he was leaving. The slick green disks drifted on the surface like lily pads in a poisoned pond.

"You're going to have to fish that out eventually," said a woman's voice.

I turned. Elena. My oldest friend, my former friend, the friend I hadn't spoken to since the incident last spring. She wore a black one-piece and held two margaritas like peace offerings.

"When did you get here?"

"Just now. Your cousin invited me. Said you might need someone." She set the drinks on the concrete and sat on the edge, feet in the water. "Jonathan's gone?"

"Back to Seattle. His wife's pregnant."

Elena nodded, like this made perfect sense. "And you're just—what? Staring at salad debris?"

"I'm bearing witness to my own bad choices."

"That's not what bearing means, Maya." Elena slid into the pool, fully dressed, and began gathering spinach leaves in her hands. "Bearing is carrying. Bearing is enduring. This"—she held up a dripping handful—"this is just cleanup."

Something broke in me then. I slid in beside her, my expensive silk dress billowing like a jellyfish. We treaded water together in the deep end, collecting spinach while the desert stars watched like indifferent ex-lovers.

"You know," Elena said softly, "the day you found out about me and Tom—what I needed most was for you to bear with me. Not to forgive me. Just to sit in the mess."

I looked at her. Really looked. The lines around her eyes, the way her wet hair stuck to her neck like dark seaweed. The things we bear. The things we don't.

"I can't do this alone," I said. The spinach was gone, but the water still felt thick with everything unsaid.

Elena's hand found mine underwater. "I know. That's why I came."