What We Keep in the Water

The pool had gone green with neglect, same as everything else in the yard, same as everything between them. Maya stood at the edge, toes curled over cracked concrete, watching how the wind rippled the surface into something that almost looked alive if you didn't look too closely.

"You bought papayas," David said from the sliding door. He'd stopped announcing his presence months ago.

"They were on sale."

"You hate papayas."

She did. They tasted like sweet nothing, like intention without follow-through. But she'd bought them anyway because the checkout line was long and the woman behind her had two papayas in her basket and Maya had thought: that's what someone with a straightforward life buys. Papayas. Not questions.

"The goldfish died," David said.

"Which one?"

"The orange one. The one that looked like your mother's lipstick."

Maya turned around. David was thinner than he'd been when they met, when he'd laughed at her joke about the betting pool at work and bought her a drink that turned into three years. Now he just looked whittled.

"It was three years old, David. Goldfish don't live forever."

"Neither do marriages," he said, and the air between them went very still.

She thought about running—just turning and sprinting down the driveway and keeping going until her lungs burned or she hit the ocean or she became someone who bought papayas because she liked them. But her feet stayed planted on the concrete.

"Flush it," she said.

"What?"

"The fish. Flush it down the toilet like every other dead thing we can't figure out what to do with."

David's mouth tightened into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You know what I did this morning? I drained the pool."

Maya looked back at the water. It wasn't green anymore. It was clear and still and deep enough to drown in.

"Why?"

"Because I thought maybe if we could see the bottom," he said, "we'd know whether to get in."

The papayas sat on the kitchen counter, softening in the heat. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. The pool reflected a sky the color of old bruises.

"Well?" David asked. "Can you see it?"

Maya looked at the bottom of the pool. She saw cracks and leaves and the glint of something metal—a ring maybe, or just light playing tricks.

"No," she said. "But I think I'm done running away from it."

She picked up a papaya, split it open with a knife, and ate it standing over the drained pool. It tasted like everything she'd been too afraid to try.