The Last Swim

The packing box sat on his desk like a coffin. Seventeen years at the company, and they'd given him until noon. Security would escort him out.

Jeremy looked around his cubicle. There was the dying peace lily Sheila from accounting had given him when his mother died. There was the photo of Hannah and him at the Grand Canyon, squinting into sunlight, before everything between them became a series of careful avoidances and unspoken disappointments.

And there was the goldfish.

He'd won it at a company picnic in 2019, throwing ping pong balls into small bowls. The prize had seemed ridiculous at the time—a fragile life in a plastic bag—but he'd grown strangely fond of the fish. He'd named it Consuela, after his first supervisor, a woman who'd once told him he had kind eyes.

"You taking the fish?" Marcus asked, leaning against the cubicle wall. Marcus was twenty-four, wore hoodies to client meetings, and now owned Jeremy's department.

"I can't leave it here."

"Jeremy, it's a fish. It'll die. They all die."

"Not this one."

He found a large jar in the breakroom, emptied the remaining salsa into the trash, and transferred Consuela. She swam in confused circles, her orange scales catching the fluorescent light.

The drive home took forty minutes. He sat in the garage for ten more, the engine cooling, the jar in the passenger seat. The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing.

Hannah was in the kitchen when he finally went inside. She looked up from her tablet, then at the jar.

"You're home early."

"Layoffs."

"Oh. Oh, Jeremy."

She didn't come to him. They stood in their kitchen, surrounded by granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, the expensive life they'd built together feeling suddenly like a stage set.

"I brought Consuela," he said, raising the jar.

"The fish?"

"They were going to flush her."

Hannah looked at him for a long moment. Then she walked to the sliding glass door. "Come here."

The pool was empty. They'd drained it three years ago when the pump died, promising each other they'd fix it before summer. The summer had come and gone. Three summers, actually. The concrete was cracked now, weeds growing through the fissures like fragile green fingers.

"I called the pool guy yesterday," Hannah said, looking out at the empty basin. "He's coming Thursday."

"We can't afford it."

"Not anymore. Maybe that's the point."

She touched the glass of the sliding door. "I was going to tell you tonight. I'm not happy, Jeremy. I haven't been for a long time. And I don't think you have been either."

"The pool—"

"The pool is just a pool. But we've been draining this thing for years."

Jeremy set Consuela's jar on a patio table. The goldfish swam to the edge, pressing against the glass.

"I had a plan," he said quietly. "The company, the promotions, the house with the pool. We were going to be happy. That was the plan."

"Plans don't keep you warm at night."

Hannah turned to face him. "I met someone. I haven't—done anything. But I met someone who makes me laugh. Who asks me questions. Who remembers that I don't like sushi."

Jeremy felt something crack inside his chest, not all at once but like ice under too much weight.

"I remember you don't like sushi."

"You remember facts, Jeremy. You don't remember me."

They stood there as the light faded, the empty pool between them like a crater, evidence of something that had collapsed from within. A cable from the neighbor's house swayed in the wind, a loose connection that had needed tightening for years. Everyone knew it. Everyone had meant to do something about it.

Consuela swam to the surface of her jar, mouth opening, closing. Opening, closing.

"What happens now?" Jeremy asked.

"I don't know. But I think we fill the pool. Or we sell the house. But we stop pretending it's going to fix itself."

She reached for his hand, and after a moment, he took it. Her palm was warm. They stood together as the first stars appeared above the empty pool, two people who had forgotten how to be with each other, suddenly remembering they were there.