The Goldfish at Home Plate

The baseball sat on Marcus's coffee table like a paperweight for memories neither of us wanted to hold down. Signed by some minor leaguer whose name I'd forgotten, its surface scuffed from where we'd thrown it against the garage siding summer after summer, until the wood gave way to raw daylight and we gave way to whatever it is that happens between boys who become men who become strangers.

'He's still alive,' Marcus said, not looking at me. 'The goldfish.'

I followed his gaze to the bowl on the windowsill, its water clouded with time. Inside, a single orange fish drifted through the artificial plants, its movement so slow it might have been suspended in amber rather than water. I'd given it to him the week before his wedding – a joke about commitment, about how even goldfish lasted longer than our track record with women. That was seven years ago. The marriage had lasted three.

'Carrots,' I said.

Marcus looked up, confused.

'You named him Carrots. It was ironic.'

'Right.' He cracked a smile that didn't reach his eyes. 'Ironic. Like us still being friends.'

The word hung there – friend – a label we'd outgrown but couldn't quite shed. We were something less now, bonded only by the weight of what we hadn't said. His wife had left because he wouldn't talk about anything that mattered. I'd stopped visiting because I didn't know how to be around two people drowning separately in the same house.

'My dad died,' I said. The baseball on the table seemed to pulse. 'Last month.'

Marcus went still. 'You didn't tell me.'

'I didn't want to explain why you weren't at the funeral.'

The truth settled between us like dust. He'd stopped being the person I called when life broke open somewhere. I'd stopped being the person who noticed he wasn't calling.

The goldfish surfaced, its mouth opening and closing at the water's surface, gulping air it couldn't breathe.

'I keep thinking I should flush him,' Marcus said quietly. 'Put us both out of our misery. But then I think – what if he's the only thing that's real? The only thing that's still here from before everything went wrong.'

I picked up the baseball, feeling the signature under my thumb. 'He's not the only thing.'

Marcus finally looked at me, really looked, and I saw the same exhausted hope I felt – that we might still become friends again, if we could survive the long season of ourselves.