Goldfish in the Deep End

The papaya was already brown by the time she returned to the table. Three hours he'd been waiting at the hotel pool, watching tropical fruit oxidize while she decided their future.

"You're thinking about the goldfish again," she said, dropping into the chair opposite him. Her engagement ring caught the sunlight, throwing tiny rainbows against the hotel restaurant's upscale mediocrity.

"Their memory span is a myth, you know. They don't actually forget every seven seconds." He pushed the papaya aside. "They remember. They just don't care enough to hold onto anything."

"That's not why I'm leaving, David."

"Isn't it?" He gestured toward the pool, where a family played—father tossing his daughter into the air, her laughter sharp against the splash. "You said it yourself. We've been swimming in circles since graduation. Beautiful, contained, predictable. Like goldfish in a bowl you won in eighth grade and eventually forgot to feed."

She reached across the table, her fingers brushing his wrist. "I wanted an ocean, David. Not a bigger bowl."

The pool's surface rippled in the wind. He remembered buying the papaya yesterday at the market, how she'd laughed when he tried to guess its ripeness. There'd been a time when she thought his inability to choose fruit was charming. Now it was just another way he'd failed to provide what she needed.

"I would have learned to swim in deeper water," he said quietly. "If you'd asked."

"That's exactly it." She stood, smoothing her skirt. "I shouldn't have to ask."

He watched her walk away—past the pool, where the father now helped his daughter onto a inflatable raft, toward the lobby and her new job in San Francisco. The papaya sat between them, brown and soft and forgotten. Some things, he realized, spoiled whether you tended to them or not.

A goldfish broke the surface of the hotel's decorative pond, gasping. He dropped the papaya into the water. It floated briefly before sinking, and somewhere beneath the surface, the fish found something new to circle.