Inventory of Shared Things

The cable modem blinked its little green lights at her from the floor—another thing to divide. Sarah sat on a cardboard box, eating an orange, peeling it in long strips that fell between her knees like confetti. The citrus smell cut through the stale dust of packing.

'The goldfish goes with me,' Mark said from the kitchen doorway. He wouldn't meet her eyes. 'I bought it.'

'You bought it because I said I wanted one.' She spit a seed into her palm. 'Fine. Take the fish.'

The fishbowl sat on the windowsill, its single inhabitant swimming endless circles in water clouded with algae. They'd named it Freedom, which seemed cruel now.

Barnaby, their dog, sensed something. He moved from Mark to Sarah, his nails clicking on the hardwood, tail switching between hopeful and confused. Luna the cat watched from her perch on the refrigerator, unimpressed as always.

'The cat definitely stays with you,' Mark said. 'She never liked me.'

'The cat doesn't like anyone. That's her appeal.' Sarah finished the orange, wiped sticky fingers on her jeans. 'Just like someone else I could name.'

Mark's jaw tightened. She saw him register the shot, decide whether to fire back. He didn't. 'What about the cable subscription?'

'Cancel it. Neither of us watches TV anymore anyway.' She stood up, her knees popping. 'That's the whole problem, isn't it?'

They'd stopped watching things together. Stopped doing most things together somewhere along the way, the shared life narrowing to parallel routines inside the same walls. Now they were dividing it like spoils, as if assigning ownership could extract the other person from every object, every room, every memory.

Outside, a siren wailed. Barnaby abandoned them both for the couch. Luna began washing her face with deliberate, slow strokes of her paw.

'You know what?' Sarah said. 'Keep the fish. Keep the cable. Keep the apartment.' She grabbed a box labeled KITCHEN. 'I'm taking the dog.'

Mark looked up, really looked at her for the first time that afternoon. 'Sarah—'

'No. It's fine. Really.' She pushed past him toward the door. 'Luna can have the goldfish for all I care.'

The orange peels lay on the floor between them like something that had already begun to rot.