The Hat by the Goldfish Pond

Arthur sat on his favorite bench in the garden, the worn felt hat resting on his knee like an old friend. It had been Eleanor's favorite—the shade of navy she'd called 'midnight on a summer lake,' though Arthur had always thought it looked more like the bruised purple of a thunderhead. She'd worn it the day they met at the county fair, back when Eisenhower was in the White House and a dollar could still buy a Sunday dinner.

Beside him, the goldfish pond stirred in the afternoon light. Comet, the oldest of the fish, cruised past a water lily with the slow deliberation of age. Arthur had bought him as a fry the year Eleanor passed—seven years ago now. The grandchildren called him 'the dinosaur fish.' Arthur called him 'the stubborn old coot' and suspected Comet understood the compliment.

'You're outlasting me, you scaly rascal,' Arthur murmured, leaning forward to scatter a pinch of flakes. Comet surfaced, his orange fins flashing like embers in the dappled light.

The garden here in Ohio was a far cry from that winter they'd spent in Florida, chasing Eleanor's dream of seeing palms before the doctors said no more trips. She'd made him take her picture under every single palm tree they found—thirty-seven photographs, each one labeled in her careful cursive: 'Palm #12, Miami Beach, Feb 14' and 'Palm #28, Key West, Mar 3.'

Arthur had laughed at her obsession then. Now he kept that album on his nightstand, though he hadn't opened it since the funeral. Some memories were too precious to risk fading in the light of day.

The sun dipped lower. A cardinal called from the oak tree—three sharp notes, then silence. Arthur felt the familiar ache in his hip, the one that reminded him of eighty-three years of living. Comet settled into the shadows of the pond's edge, his evening ritual complete.

'Well,' Arthur said aloud to the empty garden, 'she always said you had more sense than me.' He picked up Eleanor's hat and settled it carefully on his head. The brim slid over his eyes just as it always had. Tomorrow, he decided, he would find that photo album. Tomorrow, he would count the palms again. Tonight, he would sit here and remember, as the fireflies rose and the stars found their old places in the sky, just as they had for every generation that ever looked up and wondered about the ones who came before.