The Last Known Address

The goldfish had been dead for three days before Marcus noticed. It floated near the top of the bowl, its orange scales catching the afternoon light through the blinds—same blinds Sarah had picked out seven years ago, back when they still made decisions together instead of past each other.

He poured himself another drink, the papaya soap she'd bought for their anniversary sitting on the edge of the sink, unused. Everything was unused now. The apartment held the breathless quality of a crime scene, or perhaps just the aftermath of two people who'd run out of things to say to each other.

"You're like the sphinx," she'd told him during the last argument. "All riddles and silence. I'm tired of guessing what you're thinking."

What he'd been thinking was that he didn't know how to be married anymore. Maybe he never had. They'd met at a baseball game— Dodgers versus Giants, extra innings, summer heat thick as honey. She'd been wearing a cap three sizes too big, cheering for the wrong team. He'd fallen in love with her wrongness, the way she made his careful life feel dangerous.

Now the cable bill sat unpaid on the counter. They'd fought about that too—her wanting premium channels, him insisting on the basic package. Some marriages ended in fireworks. Theirs had ended over $29.99 a month.

Marcus ate the last papaya from the fruit bowl, sweet and unfamiliar on his tongue. She'd loved them. He'd pretended to. That was the thing about grief— it made you sentimental about things you'd never actually enjoyed.

He flushed the goldfish.

The water swirled, carrying it away to join the other things he'd let slip through his fingers: trust, patience, the particular rhythm of another person's breathing beside him at night. Down it all went.

Marcus walked to the bedroom, packed a single bag. He left the papaya soap. He left the unpaid cable bill. He left the ghost of who they'd been together.

Some riddles, he realized, solve themselves not with answers but with the courage to walk away.