Glass Walls

Mara pressed her forehead against the cool tank, watching the comet-tailed goldfish drift through suspended particulate matter like thoughts she couldn't quite hold onto. Three years of marriage to David, and his passion for breeding these fucking fish remained the most mysterious thing about him.

'You're brooding again.'

She didn't turn. Richard's voice carried that proprietary weight he'd developed since their first assigned project in Chicago. Since the hotel room with the scratchy comforter and the minibar champagne they'd both pretended was spontaneous.

'I'm not brooding. I'm thinking.'

'About David?'

'About how you called him a _bull-headed neanderthal_ at the Christmas party and he toasted you anyway.' She finally faced him. Richard looked good in that calculated way — expensive suit, knowing smile, eyes that had already cataloged her weaknesses like inventory. 'He's a good man, Richard.'

'Good men don't make you cry in hotel bathtubs.' He stepped closer. 'Tomorrow's the retreat. Miller's announced early retirement. The VP position opens.'

'So?'

'So I need you there. With me. Not here watching fish that forget everything every three seconds.' His hand grazed her waist, possessive as a claim stake. 'Please tell me you're not reconsidering. After everything we've built.'

Mara looked back at the goldfish. David had named them all after philosophers — the irony of creatures with three-second memory carrying names like Kant and Nietzsche. But maybe that was the point. Maybe forgetting wasn't failure. Maybe it was wisdom.

'Remember what you said about my husband?' she asked quietly. 'About how he couldn't see what was happening right in front of him?'

Richard smiled, that fox-smile of his, clever and utterly unaware of the trap. 'Nature of prey animals, Mara.'

She turned fully toward him, and something in her face made his smile falter. 'David saw your texts, Richard. Last month. He just didn't say anything.'

The silence stretched between them, filled by the bubbling of filters and the soft darting of orange fins through green-tinted water.

'He's not the bull in this story,' she said. 'That's the part you got wrong.'

'Mara—'

'He forwarded everything to HR. And to Miller. So maybe the question isn't whether I'm reconsidering. Maybe it's whether you still have a job after tomorrow.' She walked past him toward the exit. 'Some creatures bite, Richard. You just never see the teeth until they're already in your throat.'