Division of Assets

The divorce mediator looked at us with weary professional sympathy. "You've reached an agreement on everything except the cat."

Sarah sat across the table, her arms crossed in that way that used to mean she was reconsidering her position, but now just meant she'd already decided. "Barnaby was mine before we married."

"I paid for his surgery last year," I countered. "That bladder stone procedure cost two grand."

The bull - my father, God rest his stubborn soul - would have laughed at this. He'd treated marriage like a baseball game, something with clear winners and losers, statistics and standings. Sarah and I had tried to be different. We'd promised we weren't keeping score.

But we were. We'd been keeping score for seven years.

"Let's take a break," the mediator suggested. I walked to the window, watching the traffic below. Somewhere in this city, in an apartment we'd once shared, a goldfish swam in endless circles in a bowl on Sarah's nightstand. We'd won him at a carnival three months into our relationship, back when we still believed that winning things together meant something.

Goldfish have a reputation for bad memories. Maybe that's a blessing.

I turned back to Sarah. "You know what my father said when I told him we were getting married?"

She didn't answer, but I saw her shoulders tense.

"He said marriage is just a bull that you ride until it throws you or you figure out how to make it think it was its idea to go where you wanted. He called it 'relationship economics.'"

Sarah finally looked at me. "That's why you never fought for us. You thought you had to let me think everything was my idea."

"I—"

"You can have the cat," she said. "You can have Barnaby. And the baseball cards your grandmother gave us. And those awful golf clubs."

"Sarah—"

"I just want you to know I noticed. I always noticed." She gathered her papers. "The mediator will send over the final agreement."

Two weeks later, Barnaby slept on my chest, purring. He didn't care about economics or who won. He just knew who fed him and whose chest was warmest. Some creatures know exactly what they need, with no dignity lost.

The goldfish probably died anyway. They always do.