Goldfish in the Abandoned Pool

The pool had been drained for years, its concrete bottom cracked and stained with time, yet somehow the goldfish survived in the shallow rainwater that collected in the deep end. Sarah stood at the edge, her father's old fedora crushed against her chest, watching the orange flashes dart between the rotting leaves.

She hadn't returned to this house since the funeral three years ago. The hat still smelled faintly of his tobacco and that specific brand of hair pomade he'd used since before she was born. Her mother had pressed it into her hands along with the house keys, saying Sarah was the only one who'd understand what to do with the property.

The divorce had been finalized last month. Twenty years of marriage, gone like that. Richard had said he needed something different, someone different. Sarah had needed the pool to still be full of crystal blue water, needed the goldfish to still be alive, needed her father to still be sitting on the deck with his hat and his newspaper and his unquestioning presence.

She threw the hat onto the pool's cracked concrete. It landed near the edge, the brim catching on a piece of rebar.

The goldfish continued their endless circling, oblivious to the woman watching them, unaware they were swimming in what amounted to a grave. They'd been her tenth birthday present, lived twenty years beyond their expected lifespan, and now they were the only things left of the life she'd once known.

Sarah wondered what they remembered. Goldfish were supposed to have three-second memories, weren't they? Maybe that was a blessing. Maybe they just kept discovering the same cracked concrete, the same rotting leaves, the same small world, and thought it was new every time.

She pulled off her wedding ring—finally, finally—and dropped it into the pool. It sank past the goldfish, past the leaves, settling into the muck at the bottom. The fish didn't even scatter.

The hat stayed where she'd thrown it. Some things were meant to be left behind.