What We Don't Say

The hotel pool glowed an artificial turquoise beneath the desert sky. Elena sat on the lounge chair, watching him cut through the water with precise, practiced strokes. Marcus had always been like this — swimming laps while she treaded water, forever waiting at the edge.

They were in Scottsdale for his company retreat. Three days of mandatory team-building and open-bar networking, while back home, their basement flooded, their cat died, and Elena discovered she couldn't remember the last time they'd touched each other without it feeling like an obligation.

"Your turn," he said, pulling himself from the pool. Water cascaded down his chest, collecting in the hollows of his collarbone. He sat beside her, dripping onto the concrete. "You love swimming."

"Not anymore."

He frowned, reaching for her hand. His fingers were prune-soft. "You used to live in the water. What happened?"

Elena looked at him — really looked. There was a piece of spinach lodged between his front teeth, green and stubborn from the breakfast buffet they'd attended separately that morning. She'd mentioned it three times already. He never checked the mirror anymore.

"Marcus," she said softly. "You have spinach in your teeth."

He laughed, the sound hollow and bright. "Always the details with you." He didn't move to remove it.

The pool surface rippled in the wind. Somewhere, a child screamed with delight. Elena remembered their honeymoon in Portugal, how they'd swum naked in the Atlantic at dawn, how she'd felt like they were the only two people who'd ever been in love.

"I filed the divorce papers yesterday," she said.

The spinach sat there. The water lapped against the pool's edge. Marcus's smile didn't falter — he simply kept nodding, as if she'd commented on the weather, as if she'd remarked that the water was perfect for swimming.

"I know," he said finally. "I was served this morning."

They sat in silence. The desert sun climbed higher. Elena watched the water, thinking how strange it was that you could drown in something you once loved, how you could forget to come up for air until your lungs burned and the world went dark and quiet, like the bottom of a pool, like the space between them, like the years they'd spent pretending not to see what was right in front of their faces.