Goldfish at Seventh Inning

The cardboard box sat half-packed in what used to be the dining room. Ellen had already taken the furniture. Now it was just the small things — the debris of twelve years that no one wanted to fight over.

Marcus picked up the glass bowl, water sloshing gently. Inside, the goldfish — nameless, purchased on impulse at a county fair five years ago — swam in circles. He'd kept it alive through three moves, through Ellen's miscarriage, through the affairs neither spoke about. The fish had more longevity than their marriage.

"You taking him?" Ellen stood in the doorway, orange light from the setting streetlamp catching the silver in her hair. She looked different already. Lighter.

"Can't. Apartment doesn't allow pets."

"Pets." She laughed, not unkindly. "It's a fish, Marcus. It's hardly a golden retriever."

He set the bowl on the counter. The baseball radio played softly in the background — seventh inning stretch. They'd met at a game, drunk on overpriced beer and the electric certainty of new love. Now they were two strangers dividing possessions like enemies who'd forgotten why they were fighting.

"Remember," she said, gesturing to the refrigerator, "there's spinach in the crisper. Bought it last week before—" Before she walked out. Before the silence settled in.

"Take it."

"I don't want your spinach, Marcus."

"Then throw it out."

She moved closer, and for a moment, he thought she might touch him. Instead she reached past him, her sleeve brushing his arm, and grabbed the fish bowl.

"I'll take him," she said. "Maybe someone's supposed to look after something living here."

The front door clicked shut. The radio announcer's voice swelled — bottom of the seventh, bases loaded. Marcus stood alone in the empty room, surrounded by half-filled boxes and the ghost of her perfume, and realized he'd been the one leaving for years. He just never walked out the door.

Outside, an orange car drove past. Somewhere, a game was ending. The spinach would rot in the refrigerator. The goldfish would keep swimming in circles, oblivious to the wreckage of the lives that contained it.

Some things, Marcus thought, were just meant to keep moving.