The Goldfish at the End

Margot stared at the **goldfish** bowl on her husband's nightstand. Leonard had bought it on impulse three weeks ago, during what he called his 'existential clearance sale' at the pet store. The fish—named Steve, because Leonard said everything deserved a name that sounded like it might belong to an accountant—swam in endless circles, its orange scales catching the morning light.

She picked up the **vitamin** bottle from his bedside table. D3, with extra strength for bone health. He'd stopped taking them last month. 'What's the point of strong bones if the rest of me is falling apart anyway?' he'd said, the joke landing too heavily between them like a suitcase dropped on hardwood.

Leonard was in the kitchen now. She could hear him moving around, the soft thud of his slippers, the refrigerator door opening and closing. They'd stopped pretending everything was fine two months ago, after the third specialist told them there was nothing more to be done. Sometimes the universe just didn't give you what you prayed for, no matter how many novenas you said or how many promises you made to a God who might not be listening.

She went to join him. Leonard stood by the counter, his **hat**—that ridiculous fedora he'd insisted on wearing to their anniversary dinner last year—resting on the table beside his untouched coffee. He was staring at his own **palm**, tracing the life line with a finger, as if checking to see how much remained.

'Stream it,' she said, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. 'The reading you booked. The palm reader.' She'd found the receipt in his coat pocket yesterday.

He turned in her arms, and for a moment she saw the man she'd married—not the frightened patient, not the grieving almost-father, just Leonard. 'I wanted to know if there was a mistake. If the lines were wrong.' He leaned his forehead against hers. 'But then I thought, maybe the mistake was thinking I needed someone to tell me how to **bear** it.'

The goldfish swam in its bowl, indifferent and eternal in its glass room. Outside, the neighbor's cat stalked something in the yard. Margot held her husband tighter and thought about how love was just deciding to show up, over and over, even when you wanted to run away. 'We could get another fish,' she said. 'Steve looks lonely.'

Leonard laughed, the sound catching in his throat like something precious. 'Yeah. We could do that.'