What We Lose in the Water

The papaya sat on the patio table, its orange flesh glistening like something forbidden. Elena had sliced it that morning, her knife moving through the fruit with practiced ease, the way she'd moved through twenty years of marriage. I'd watched her from the pool's edge, my hair plastered to my skull, thinking about how easily things can be cut open.

Our retriever, Buster, lay beside me, his muzzle now the color of dirty snow. He'd been a championship retriever once—fast, relentless, perfect. Now his hips clicked when he stood, and I'd catch him staring at nothing, perhaps remembering birds he'd failed to catch. Maybe that's what aging feels like for dogs and men both: the gradual accumulation of things you didn't quite finish.

"Your father called," Elena said, not looking up from her book. She always knew when I was thinking about him.

My father had taught me baseball in the backyard of our suburban home, the same backyard where he'd later explained that he was leaving us for a woman he'd met at a hardware store. The baseball lessons had been his version of love—imperfect, intermittent, but somehow still essential. I'd played in college, briefly, until my knee gave out. That same knee now ached when it rained.

"What did he want?"

"He's getting married again. Third time's the charm, apparently."

Buster whined in his sleep, chasing something.

I looked at the papaya again. It had reminded me of our honeymoon in Hawaii, where we'd eaten it for breakfast every morning, sticky-fingered and hungover, believing that love alone could sustain us. We'd been wrong about that. Love wasn't sustenance; it was just what kept you at the table when the food ran out.

"Are you going to the wedding?" Elena asked.

"No."

"Good."

She reached across the table and took a piece of papaya, her fingers brushing mine. Her touch was familiar as breath, as necessary. The dog woke and stretched, yawned, settled back down. Somewhere in the distance, kids were playing baseball—maybe it was just in my head, but the crack of the bat was there, sharp and clean.

I thought about my father, about the way he'd walked out of our lives with nothing but a suitcase and a new phone number. About how I'd almost done the same thing three years ago, when the consulting firm offered me the job in Chicago. About how I'd stayed instead.

"Buster needs his medicine," Elena said.

I stood, water running off my skin, and together we went inside, leaving the papaya to brown in the afternoon sun.