The things we leave behind

The goldfish circled its bowl with the bored precision of something that had seen too much. Three years of dinner parties, arguments, the muted thump of music from the bedroom while I slept on the couch. I'd wanted to name it, but she said pets named after breakups were bad omens. Now she was gone and the fish remained, swimming through someone else's memories.

Her dog—a rescue with anxiety issues that mirrored both of us—looked up from where he'd curled on her side of the bed. Still mine for another week. The custody agreement had been more detailed than our marriage vows: alternating weekends, shared vet bills, who got the handmade ceramic bowls she'd bought in Florence.

"You're doing it again," my sister said from the doorway. I looked up from the orange I'd been peeling for twenty minutes, my fingers stained with juice, the rind spiraling into something elaborate and pointless. "Living inside your head. It's been two months, David."

The glass of water on her nightstand sat untouched. She'd always kept one there—hydration, she called it, though she never drank from it. Just another performance of wellness, like the meditation app she subscribed to but never used, the vitamins that expired in the cabinet. Our entire marriage had been composed of these small, choreographed gestures.

"I'm not living anywhere," I said, though the words felt hollow. "I'm dividing things."

"You're looking for her in things." She stepped into the room, her presence sudden and solid in the space that had felt so vacant. "She's not in the fish, David. She's not in the dog. She's definitely not in that orange."

I looked at my hands. The citrus scent was sharp, bright, unfairly alive. Somewhere in this apartment, there was still the imprint of her palm against the wall where she'd steadied herself that last night—drunk, not on wine but on the honesty that finally spilled out between us. The things we leave behind are never the things we think will matter.

"Give me the orange," she said, reaching for my hand. "Let's go get breakfast. The fish can wait."

And outside, the morning was already happening without us.