The Things We Keep

The fox came every evening at dusk, a rust-copper shadow moving through the overgrown garden. Mara watched from the kitchen window, gripping her wine glass until her knuckles turned white. Three months since Thomas left, and the only living things that visited were this scavenger and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

She turned back to the living room, where the TV flickered with the sound turned down. The cable bill was overdue again—another envelope she'd toss in the drawer unopened. Some days she watched anything: home shopping networks, Spanish soap operas she couldn't understand, infomercials for exercise equipment. Tonight, baseball highlights. Players sliding into home, safe.

On the bookshelf, the goldfish bowl caught the blue light from the screen. Bob swam his endless laps, his orange scales dull in the stagnant water. Thomas had bought him as a joke after their first miscarriage—a pet that couldn't die, he'd said, because it had no memory of anything bad. Bob was three years old now, living proof that memory wasn't the problem. Remembering was easy. It was the forgetting that killed you.

Her phone buzzed. Thomas's name lit up the screen.

"I'm coming by," he said. "To get the rest of my things."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight. I have the game tomorrow."

Baseball. Of course. The company softball tournament that had started everything—him staying late for drinks with Sheila from accounting, the "team bonding" that happened in hotel bars while Mara sat at home.

Outside, the fox paused, looked up at the window with eyes like polished amber. Then it slipped through a gap in the fence, gone as quick as everything else.

Mara walked to the bookshelf and tapped the glass. Bob swam to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent witness.

"Three years," she whispered. "And you still don't know you're swimming in circles."

The doorbell rang. She didn't move. The cable bill could wait. Thomas could wait. Bob could swim his laps. Somewhere in the garden, the fox would return tomorrow, and the day after that. Some things, she realized, you didn't chase away. You just watched them take what they needed, and waited to see if anything remained when they were done.