Riddles in the Aquarium

The cable guy was the first person Elena had spoken to in three days.

"You've got a loose connection," he said, crouching beside her TV stand, his work shirt stained with something that looked like coffee.

Elena watched his hands—rough, with hair curling at the knuckles. He held the coaxial cable like something alive that might bite. In the center of her palm, she pressed the gold wedding band she'd taken to wearing on a chain, the metal warm from her skin.

"Your husband usually deals with this stuff?" he asked without looking up.

"Ex-husband. And no."

He nodded,like he'd heard worse. He finished tightening the connection and stood, wiping his hands on his thighs. "Should work now. You want to test it?"

Elena turned on the TV. Static resolved into a nature documentary—a sphinx moth unfurling its proboscis, beautiful and strange and hungry.

"Perfect," she said, though she wasn't really looking.

After he left, she sat on the floor of her apartment, which still felt like someone else's. In the corner, Marcus's aquarium hummed with filtered light. He'd taken everything else in the divorce—furniture, books, the good knives—but left the goldfish, a fat orange creature with what looked like a permanent smirk.

"Why you?" she asked it. The fish blinked its expressionless eyes and opened its mouth in a slow, mesmerizing loop.

It struck her as incredibly funny: Marcus, who'd left riddles instead of answers, who'd spoken in metaphors and absolutes, had abandoned the one thing that actually needed nothing from him. No riddles. No expectations. Just food and light and the occasional tap on the glass.

She found herself crying, great messy sobs that had been waiting weeks for permission. The goldfish swam to the front of the tank, its tail flicking in gentle currents, and she pressed her palm against the warm glass.

"Okay," she said aloud. "Okay."

The sphinx on TV had already moved on to something else—mating, or death, or the business of surviving. She turned the television off and sat in the quiet, learning the shape of a life that was finally, completely hers.