The Last Orange

The goldfish circled its bowl in the corner of the hospital room, its orange scales catching the fluorescent light. Marcus had bought it two weeks ago, a ridiculous impulse purchase from a pet store during his lunch break. Something about having a living thing in this sterile room where his mother was dying.

"It's just a fish, Maya," he'd said when she'd questioned him, defensive already, shoulders up around his ears. "It's company."

Now his mother was gone, and the goldfish remained. Maya watched it swim—its mouth perpetually opening, closing, the same endless loop of hunger and movement that meant nothing.

Marcus sat in the vinyl chair beside her bed, his palm pressed flat against the white sheets where her hand had been hours ago. The skin there was still warm from his touch.

"What do we do with it?" Maya asked. Her voice sounded thin in the quiet room.

"The fish?" Marcus didn't look up. "We take it home, I guess."

"Marcus."

"What."

"I'm not talking about the fish."

He lifted his head then, and Maya saw it again—that look she'd been seeing for months. The one that meant he was somewhere else, someplace she couldn't follow. Their marriage had become a series of unasked questions, unsaid words. Each day another small withdrawal from the account of what they used to be.

On the nightstand, the last orange his mother had peeled sat on a paper plate, its segments drying in the air-conditioned room. She'd insisted on eating it even though swallowing had become difficult. A final small rebellion.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Marcus said.

"Neither do I."

The goldfish rose to the surface, broke the water with its mouth, sank again.

"Remember when we thought thirty was old?" Marcus asked suddenly. "When we thought we'd have everything figured out by now."

Maya reached out and took his hand, palm to palm, fingers threading through his. "We're not old, Marcus. We're just... living in it now. The middle part."

"It's harder than I expected."

"Everything is."

They sat there as the hospital settled into evening, the goldfish swimming its endless circles, the orange segments drying into something unrecognizable. Somewhere in the space between their hands, something shifted. Not fixed. Not healed. But maybe, just maybe, still alive.