The Goldfish Were Right

The papaya sat on the counter, its mottled yellow-orange skin mocking me with the promise of breakfast I'd never eat. Julian had bought it yesterday, that last morning before he packed his things in boxes and left me with an apartment that felt too large and a fruit bowl that felt too full.

'You'll never remember what I said,' he'd told me once, 'you're like those goldfish in the dentist's office — three seconds, then it's gone.' He wasn't talking about my memory. He was talking about the way I moved through our relationship, surfacing for air then diving back into whatever current had caught my attention that week.

Now a friend was coming over to help me pack, and I couldn't decide if I was more furious that he'd left or that he'd been right.

The papaya had been his peace offering, or maybe his leaving gift. Its unfamiliar scent — somewhere between musk and honey — filled the kitchen. I'd never bought one before. He'd brought it home from that international market on 4th Street, the one with the aisle that always smelled like cumin and longing.

'Maybe you're the one who forgets,' I'd said, but the words had felt hollow even as they left my mouth.

My friend Elena arrived with cardboard boxes and wine, mercifully not mentioning the papaya growing softer in the afternoon heat. We worked in companionable silence until she held up a small ceramic bowl.

'You have goldfish?'

'Had. One named Keith. He died two months ago.'

She gave me that look — the one that said she knew there was more to the story, that Keith was probably just one more thing I hadn't mentioned.

'Julian bought him,' I said. 'The day we moved in together.'

Later, after Elena left and the boxes stood like headstones in every room, I cut into the papaya. Its flesh was shocking pink, filled with black seeds like tiny secrets. I ate it standing over the sink, juices running down my wrists, tasting something like memory and everything like beginning again.