The Spinach Between Our Teeth

Elena stared at the goldfish bowl on the counter, its single orange inhabitant circling endlessly in the same cloudy water. Three years they'd had it, a wedding gift from her sister, and somehow the fish had outlasted everything else that mattered.

'You're not eating,' David said, gesturing at her spinach salad with his fork. 'Again.'

She looked down at the wilted greens, thinking about how their marriage had become like that spinach—once crisp and promising, now limp under the weight of too many dressing applications.

'The presentation,' she said, watching a strand of hair come loose from David's ponytail. More gray than brown these days. 'How was it?'

'The usual. Corporate pyramid schemes don't sell themselves.' He laughed humorlessly. 'Though the new VP did say I'm on track for senior management.'

Senior management. More time away, more dinners alone, more goldfish watching. Elena remembered when they'd sit on their fire escape, talking about everything and nothing, his fingers tangled in her hair. Now they sat at opposite ends of their too-large dining table, his laptop open between them like a shield.

'That's wonderful, David,' she said, and something in her tone must have registered because he finally looked up.

'Lena, what's wrong?'

The goldfish surfaced, gulping air. She thought about telling him—about the孤独 that lived in their bed like a third person, about the job offer in Portland that sat unopened in her inbox, about how she'd started sleeping in the guest room because his restlessness kept her awake. But instead she pointed at his teeth.

'You've got spinach,' she said.

He wiped at his mouth, missing it entirely. She got up, crossed to him, and with her thumb wiped the green fleck from his canine tooth. For a moment they were close enough to kiss, but she just sat back down.

'You're leaving,' he said. It wasn't a question.

'I don't know,' she said honestly. 'But I think I stopped being here a long time ago.'

The goldfish continued circling, indifferent to the dissolution happening around it. In the morning, Elena would pack her things. But tonight, they both just stared at their cold dinners, pretending not to notice that neither of them had taken a bite.