The Goldfish at Shortstop

Margaret's gray hair had been coming in faster since the funeral. She caught herself pulling at the silver strands at her temples during board meetings, a nervous habit she'd picked up somewhere between the cardiologist and the divorce lawyer. At forty-seven, she was starting to understand how her mother had looked in the mirror that way — not with vanity, but with the slow recognition of time's indifference.

She hadn't been to a baseball game in fifteen years, not since she and Elias had season tickets behind home plate. That was before he traded her in for a twenty-six-year-old marketing coordinator who didn't ask questions about why he came home smelling like other women's perfume. Now here she was, at a minor league stadium on a Tuesday night, because her new friend Jen had somehow procured tickets and decided Margaret needed "exposure therapy."

"You're staring at his empty seat," Jen said, handing her a lukewarm beer. "Again."

"I'm not. I'm staring at the poor bastard who has to wear that mascot costume in ninety-degree humidity."

"It's a goldfish, Margaret. It's supposed to be cheerful."

"It's a goldfish wearing a jersey. That's not cheerful, that's biological confusion."

The goldfish mascot — a confused-looking orange foam creature with dead eyes — was attempting to lead the crowd in the wave. Nobody waved. The goldfish didn't seem to mind. It just kept waving its finny arms with what looked like genuine enthusiasm, despite being fundamentally ridiculous and completely alone in a stadium of four thousand people who were mostly there for the two-dollar beer night.

"You know," Margaret said, suddenly feeling tears prick her eyes for no good reason, "goldfish have a memory span of like, three seconds. That's why they're happy in bowls. They forget they're trapped every three seconds. They just keep swimming around like, 'Oh look, a plastic castle! Never seen this before!'"

"That's a myth," Jen said. "Goldfish actually have pretty good memories. They just have nobody to talk to."

The bottom of the ninth inning arrived with the home team down by two runs. Margaret finished her beer and watched the goldfish mascot attempt to dance to Cotton-Eyed Joe, its foam tail flopping with what she now recognized as resilience, not stupidity. It was still out there. Still trying. Still wearing that ridiculous orange costume with its head held high.

"Hey," Jen said. "You want to get out of here? Go get actual food?"

Margaret touched her temple, her fingers finding a coarse gray hair. She thought about leaving, but then the mascot did something unexpected — it launched itself into a somersault, landed clumsily, and pointed directly at their section with both foam fins raised in triumph.

"Yeah," Margaret said, and for the first time in months, she actually meant it. "But let's stay till the end. I want to see if the goldfish makes it."