The Goldfish Bowl

Margaret stood in the center of the kitchen, her husband's faded fedora clutched in one hand like a wounded bird. Three months after David's funeral, and she was still performing these small ceremonies of goodbye.

On the counter, the papaya he'd bought the day before his stroke sat uneaten, its skin turning from gold to an accusing brown. Beside it, a bag of spinach she couldn't bring herself to cook—his favorite, the one he'd called "brain food" while she rolled her eyes and made him anyway.

"You're still swimming in circles," her sister had said yesterday, pointing to the goldfish bowl on the mantelpiece. The fish, now five years old, darted behind its plastic castle. David had won it at a carnival, presented it like some grand prize. "They're supposed to die in weeks," he'd whispered that night, watching it swim in the dark. "This one's stubborn. Like us."

Margaret placed the hat on his empty chair at the kitchen table. She'd tried wearing it once, walking through the house in his wool coats and sweaters, inhaling his scent from the collar until she'd collapsed, retching, in their bedroom. Some widows found comfort in their husband's clothes. Margaret found only ghosts.

The goldfish surfaced, mouth opening and closing in silent bubbles. She'd considered letting it go, dropping it into the pond behind their house where it could swim properly instead of its endless loop in glass. But something stayed her hand.

"Stubborn," she whispered to the empty kitchen.

She picked up the papaya, bruised and weeping, and dropped it into the trash. Then the spinach, slick and darkening in its plastic prison. The hat went into the donation box by the door.

Margaret approached the fishbowl. The goldfish watched her with its unblinking eye, its ancient, stupid wisdom.

"Not today," she said, and carried the bowl to the back door, where the pond glittered in the afternoon light. "But soon."

The water was colder than she expected when she dipped her toe in, testing. Swimming had been David's thing. Margaret had always watched from the shore, dry and safe. But the goldfish needed more than circles, and maybe, she realized, so did she.