The Goldfish in the Empty Pool

Maya stood at the edge of the drained pool, its blue paint peeling like old sunburn. Three months after David moved out, and this was the last room of the house she hadn't touched. The inflatable goldfish still floated in the corner, caught in a cobweb—a silent orange ghost of the summer they'd pretended everything was fine.

She'd been operating on autopilot lately, a zombie in her own life. Wake, work, sleep, repeat. Her therapist called it 'functional dissociation.' Maya called it survival.

A movement caught her eye. Mittens, the cat David had secretly wanted but she'd agreed to adopt, trotted across the pool deck with something green dangling from her mouth. Fresh spinach, probably stolen from the neighbor's garden. The cat dropped it at Maya's feet and looked up expectantly, as if this offering might somehow fix everything.

"You too?" Maya whispered. "Even you miss him?"

The cat purred and wound through her legs. Maya sank onto the pool chair, the metal cold against her back. She thought about the goldfish they'd bought on impulse, how David had laughed when it jumped from the bowl that first night. How they'd both scrambled on the kitchen floor at 2 AM, trying to save a fish they hadn't even named.

That was the thing about grief—it made you sentimental about the strangest things. She didn't miss David's temper or his emotional distance. She missed the goldfish rescue. She missed who she thought he was when she agreed to adopt this cat.

Mittens jumped onto her lap, kneading insistently. Maya ran her fingers through soft fur, finally letting herself cry. Not for David, but for the version of herself she'd buried trying to make it work.

"Okay," she said to the cat, to the goldfish, to the empty pool. "Okay."

She stood up, grabbed the inflatable fish, and tossed it toward the garbage. It was time to drain the last of this particular pool.