The Aquarium We Shared

The corporate goldfish — a fat orange comet named Gerald — floated at the top of his tank again, and I knew what that meant. Another casualty in our open-plan office, another tiny life extinguished by fluorescent lights and indifference.

"He's not dead," Marcus said from the neighboring cubicle, his voice carrying that annoying optimism of someone who still believed in meritocracy and third chances. "He's just resting."

Marcus, with his baseball jersey Fridays and his daily vitamin regimen — a colorful pharmacy of optimism that he swallowed with his morning coffee. He was forty-two and still pitching in recreational leagues, still believing his shoulder would hold out, still believing that if he took enough supplements and said enough affirmations, the universe would eventually notice.

"He's gone, Marcus," I said, dropping another vitamin into my own palm — vitamin D, the depression prevention dose my therapist insisted upon. Two years since David left, and I still had the prescription. "Call facilities."

The week after Gerald's funeral — which consisted of Marcus saying a few words over the office kitchenette sink — we ended up at a bar. His team had lost their playoff game, and I'd just received another invitation to my ex's wedding. Not our wedding. His next one.

"You ever think about how goldfish don't have memories?" Marcus asked, nursing a whiskey he'd grow into. "They just keep swimming the same circles, everything new every time. Maybe they're the lucky ones."

I looked at him — really looked at him — for the first time in three years of adjacent cubicles. He had those weekend-warrior shoulders, that slight belly that came from good living and age, eyes that had maybe seen some things he couldn't fix with vitamins.

"Or maybe they're tragic," I said. "Never building on anything. Never getting better. Just... endless first dates."

"Better than endless last ones." He touched my hand, his fingers rough from baseball leather and whatever else men collected on their skin by forty-two. "My place has a tank. Empty tank. We could get it right this time."

I took my vitamin D from my purse and swallowed it dry. Somewhere, David was picking out centerpieces. Somewhere, Gerald was fish food. And here was Marcus, offering me the one thing I'd stopped believing in — a circle I might want to swim again.

"Buy me another drink first," I said. "And tell me about that curveball you never mastered."