The Last Goldfish

Sarah returned from her final divorce meeting to find Barnaby—her orange tabby—curled on the sofa as if he'd been waiting hours instead of minutes. She dropped her keys and bag beside him, the iphone in her pocket vibrating with messages she couldn't bring herself to answer. Her sister wanted to know how it went. Her mother wanted to know if she'd found a new place yet. Her former best friend wanted to know if she'd heard Marcus was already seeing someone.

She bypassed all of them and went to the desk where the goldfish bowl sat—a single, lethargic fish swimming in slow circles. Marcus had bought it on a whim three years ago, back when they were still the kind of couple who made impulse purchases and called them spontaneity. They'd joked it was their practice run, a living thing to care for together before moving on to something more demanding. They couldn't even keep a three-dollar fish alive, much less a marriage.

The packet of fish food sat beside the bowl, expired by eight months. Sarah watched the goldfish float near the surface, its movements increasingly sluggish, another reminder of how thoroughly she'd been failing at keeping things alive.

Her thumb hovered over her iphone screen, doomscrolling through friends announcing engagements, promotions, babies. All the linear progression she'd failed to achieve. Then something about the goldfish's glassy stare undid her completely, and she was weeping in earnest, snot running down her face, dignity entirely abandoned.

She carried the bowl to the bathroom, water sloshing over her hands, and poured the fish into the toilet. It fluttered once, twice, then settled into the cold porcelain. Barnaby appeared in the doorway, yellow eyes unimpressed.

Sarah flushed and watched the water rise, then spiral downward, carrying the last fragment of her marriage into the city's plumbing system. She sank to the bathroom floor, iphone beside her, its screen finally dark. For the first time in months, she didn't know what to do with her hands.

Barnaby approached and pressed his forehead against her palm, his purr vibrating through her fingers. She wrapped her arms around him and breathed in the solid, furry reality of something that hadn't left her yet. Some terrible tide had passed through her life, washing away everything she'd built, and she was finally, painfully alone on the shore. She sat with her cat on the cold tile and waited to see if she'd remember how to swim.