The Goldfish in the Pool

The swimming pool hadn't been drained in three years. Not since the accident. Elena stood at the edge, watching the murky water collect raindrops like fallen memories. Somewhere beneath the surface, goldfish that had once been someone's forgotten pets now multiplied in the dark, feeding on algae and each other.

Her phone buzzed on the patio table. Another cable news alert. Another disaster somewhere else. She ignored it.

"You're going to fall in," Marcus said from the shadow of the sphinx statue he'd commissioned during their first year of marriage. The limestone creature watched them both with its damaged face—erosion, or something deliberate. He'd never said which.

Elena adjusted her hat, a wide-brimmed thing that shielded her eyes but not her thoughts. "I was just thinking about that dinner party. When Richard fell in."

"He didn't fall."

"No. He didn't."

They'd been eleven then, gathered around this same pool, drinking wine someone else had paid for. Richard had been the one with the cable startup, the one who'd made millions and then lost them in something involving cryptocurrency and federal investigators. He'd walked into the pool fully clothed, shoes still on, and sunk to the bottom without a sound. Everyone had laughed. Eventually.

Marcus stepped closer. His silhouette against the sphinx made him look like something ancient, something carved from stone. "We should sell the house."

"And leave the fish?"

"They're not our responsibility, El. They're not even supposed to be there."

She watched a ripple break the surface. Something orange flashed beneath. "Nothing is supposed to be anywhere. That's the point."

Marcus sighed, the sound of someone who had stopped expecting to be understood. "I'm going inside. The cable guy is coming at four."

"To fix what? We don't watch TV."

"To install the new package. The one you insisted on."

She didn't remember insisting. But then, there was so much she didn't remember these days. The doctors called it functional dissociation. She called it survival.

Elena watched the sphinx. The statue offered no answers, only that eternal, damaged stare. She took off her hat and let the rain reach her face, thinking about goldfish swimming in the dark, growing larger than their enclosure, eating each other to stay alive. Some things, she decided, were better left unasked.