The Pool at Midnight

Arthur found the goldfish floating belly-up when he returned from his conference. The Vancouver hotel room felt suddenly too large, too quiet. He'd checked in three days ago, married, and would check out tomorrow divorced.

The condo had a pool. That's what the listing promised. He'd imagined himself swimming laps, finding clarity in blue water, but the pool was closed for maintenance. A yellow cable stretched across the gate—keep out, it said, or perhaps stay away.

He stood at his balcony, nursing room-temperature scotch, watching the dark water below. Somewhere in his suitcase, wrapped around a toothbrush he hadn't used since Tuesday, there was a strand of her hair. Reddish-brown. He'd meant to throw it away, but his hands had shaken.

"Arthur." She'd said it exactly once during their conversation, testing the weight of it like a word she'd learned in a foreign language. "I think you love the idea of me more than you love me."

She was right, he realized. He loved how she looked beside him at parties, how she completed the picture of who he was supposed to be at forty-two. The mortgage, the marriage, the career—all of it a performance he'd forgotten wasn't real.

The goldfish had belonged to the previous owners of their house. She'd wanted to replace it with something modern, sleek. He'd argued for tradition. Now the fish was dead, and he was housesitting in a stranger's condo, surrounded by other people's lives.

He finished the scotch and dialed room service. "Can I get another?"

The operator hesitated. "Sir, it's 2 AM."

"Right." Arthur set down the phone. Outside, beyond the cable and the closed pool, the city glowed. Tomorrow he'd check out, return to an empty house, decide what to keep and what to leave behind. But tonight, in this room that smelled of other people's vacations, he sat very still and watched the minutes pile up like water rising in a room with no drain.