The Goldfish in the Pool

The funeral was over, everyone had left, and there it was—his hat still on the hook by the door, a fedora that smelled of tobacco and rain. She hadn't moved it in three weeks. Some part of her believed that if she left it there, he might walk back through the door and claim it.

Sarah stood on the back deck, nursing a gin and tonic, watching the **pool** accumulate leaves. They'd argued about that pool so many times. He'd wanted it filled in after the kids left. "Money pit," he'd called it. "You and your goddamn **goldfish** pond." But she'd refused, and now the water was murky, reflecting nothing but the gathering clouds.

She remembered their last vacation in Mexico, how he'd spat out the **papaya** she'd peeled for him at breakfast. "Too sweet," he'd grumbled. "Everything with you is too sweet." It was the first time she'd noticed how he looked at her with something like resentment, as if her optimism was a personal affront.

The therapist had asked her to name the moment it fell apart. She'd said the **bull** market—that was the easy answer. His tech stocks had tripled, then quadrupled, and suddenly he was someone else. Someone who bought things they couldn't afford and talked about "maximizing their potential." But really, she thought now, it was earlier. It was when he stopped noticing her noticing him.

The papaya tree in the yard had died last winter. She'd covered it, wrapped it in burlap, but the frost had been relentless. Standing there in his old **hat**, which she'd finally taken down and put on her head, she realized she was the only one still grieving anything at all. The kids called occasionally. The neighbors waved.

The pool would need draining soon. The goldfish were gone—had been for years. But in the twilight, with his hat pulled low against the coming rain, she could almost imagine they were still there, just beneath the surface, waiting for someone to finally see them.