The Goldfish in the Papaya

The papaya sat on her desk, overripe and weeping golden juice onto the quarterly reports. Margaret hadn't touched it in three days—since the phone call about David.

She found herself thinking about the goldfish they'd won at a baseball game in 1997, that summer they'd both believed in forever. The fish had lived seven years, far longer than their marriage. David had flushed it down the toilet while she was at work, leaving a note: 'Swimming in better waters now.' She'd never decided if it was poetic or cruel.

"You should take your vitamins," her mother said over dinner that night, pushing the orange bottle across the table. "You look pale."

Margaret's mother still kept a photograph of David on the mantle. In it, he was swimming in Lake Michigan, head thrown back laughing, water droplets like diamonds caught on his eyelashes. Margaret had stopped looking at it years ago.

"I'm fine, Mom."

"Your father's doctor says vitamin D deficiency is real. Especially this time of year."

Her father had died before David. Before the papaya on the desk had even been a seed.

At 2 AM, Margaret found herself in the bathroom, uncapping the vitamin bottle. The pills were tiny, impossibly small. She remembered David swallowing them dry, never complaining, even when his hands started shaking.

The papaya would spoil soon. She should eat it or throw it away. Instead, she brought it to the window, where the streetlights caught the golden nectar pooling in its center. She thought about goldfish swimming in circles, thinking they were going somewhere. She thought about baseball games where people kept score even when nobody was winning.

The papaya split open in her hands, warm and soft as a body against skin. Outside, snow began to fall, covering the baseball diamond in the park, covering everything in white. Tomorrow, she would eat the fruit. Tomorrow, she would take her vitamins. Tomorrow, she would call his mother.

Tonight, she just held the papaya and let it bleed through her fingers, watching the city sleep, swimming through another night without him.