The Architecture of Loss

I was running late, again. The kind of deliberately slow motion that says: if I miss this plane, maybe I won't have to go through with it. My sister's wedding in Cairo. Where Mara and I were supposed to get engaged three years ago, before she disappeared into a bottle of pills and left me with her cat.

The cat — a sleek, judgmental creature named Pyramid — glared at me from his carrier by the door. He was the last piece of her I hadn't managed to lose or give away. My friends said I should put him down or give him to someone who could actually care for a living thing. But Pyramid had survived Mara's suicide attempt. He seemed to know something about endurance.

"You're terrible at this," I told him, grabbing my bags. "She'd be laughing her ass off watching us."

The fishbowl sat on the windowsill, three goldfish swimming in eternal circles. Mara had bought them the week after she got out of the hospital, claiming they represented clarity, mindfulness, being present in the moment. Now they just represented how I couldn't even keep a goldfish alive without googling "why is my fish floating sideways" twice a week.

The Uber arrived. I strapped Pyramid into the backseat beside me, his carrier wedged between my dress shoes and my medication. The driver kept glancing back at us like we were the saddest circus act he'd ever seen.

"First time in Egypt?" he asked, trying to make conversation.

"No," I said. "Third time. First time without her."

The goldfish would be fine. My neighbor would feed them. They'd probably outlive us both, swimming in their glass pyramid, trapped in the same circles, getting nowhere together. It struck me as I watched the city blur past the window that maybe that wasn't such a terrible way to exist.

Pyramid meowed, sharp and demanding.

"Yeah," I said. "I know. We're still running."