The Glass Between Us

Margaret stood before the aquarium, watching the goldfish circle in its endless loop. Orange scales catching the morning light, opening and closing its mouth in silent repetition. Three seconds of memory, they said. Maybe that was a gift.

"You're doing it again," Richard said from the kitchen island. His tie was already knotted perfectly, corporate armor for another day of mergers and acquisitions.

"Doing what?"

"Staring at the fish like it holds the meaning of life."

She didn't answer. The goldfish turned again, retracing its path, unaware it had seen the same plastic castle a thousand times before. Margaret felt a sudden kinship with it.

Outside, rain lashed against the windows of their penthouse. Water had always been their element — they'd met on a beach in Thailand, both running from something, toward nothing. That first week, they'd talked for hours in the shallow end of a hotel pool, their legs dangling in the chlorine blue, fingers brushing underwater like secret currents.

Now the water between them had grown deep and silent. She'd stopped swimming years ago.

"I have to work late again tonight," Richard said, already turning toward the door. "Dinner meeting with the Tokyo team."

"The goldfish died, Richard."

He paused, hand on the doorframe. "What?"

"That fish. I've been staring at it for twenty minutes. It's been floating at the top since yesterday. I just haven't... I haven't been able to flush it yet."

Richard crossed the room in three long strides, peering into the tank. "Christ, Margaret. That thing's been dead for a day? Why didn't you call the maintenance staff? They handle these things."

"Because it was your fish. You bought it."

"It's a fish, Margie. They die. You buy another one. That's how it works."

The cat meowed then — a stray they'd begun feeding on their balcony two months ago. It appeared at the glass door, wet and matted from the rain, green eyes watching them through the rain-streaked glass like it knew something they didn't.

"Open it," Margaret said.

"It's a stray, it'll make a mess."

"Open the door, Richard."

He looked at her, really looked at her, for what felt like the first time in months. Then he unlatched the door and the cat slipped inside, shaking water onto their pristine hardwood floor, and wound itself around Margaret's legs like it had always belonged there.

She looked at her husband through the glass of the aquarium, where his goldfish floated suspended in its final stillness. Something in her chest unspooled, finally.

"I think I'll stay at my sister's tonight," she said.

Richard's hand dropped from the doorframe. The cat purred against her ankles, and outside, the rain kept falling.