Three-Second Memory

The goldfish circled its bowl in the corner of what used to be their bedroom, its orange scales catching the morning light. Sarah watched it through the glass of her iPhone screen, Facetiming Mark one last time as he stood in the empty living room.

"You take the fish," she said. "You bought it."

"I thought we were keeping it here. For... you know. For when I visit."

There was a beat of silence. The goldfish bumped its nose against the glass, open-mouthed and uncomprehending. Sarah remembered how they'd won it at that carnival last summer, the night after Mark's company baseball game. He'd played left field and made a diving catch in the seventh inning, grass stains on his uniform and that fierce joy in his eyes. She'd cheered so loud her voice rasped for hours. They'd walked home hand in hand, sticky from cotton candy, and somehow ended up at a street fair where Mark spent twenty dollars throwing darts at balloons until he won her the fish.

"Sarah?" Mark's voice came through her phone's speaker, tinny and distant. "We said we'd still see each other. That we'd try."

"We're not trying anymore, Mark. We tried. And now we're—" She stopped herself. The iPhone battery was at 12 percent. A metaphor for everything.

"Remember that baseball metaphor I made?" he said quietly. "About how relationships are like extra innings? How sometimes you just keep playing because you're already on the field?"

"I remember."

"Well, Sarah, we're in the bottom of the ninth. We're down by three runs. And I think... I think we need to call the game."

The goldfish made another loop around the bowl, oblivious. Three seconds of memory, they said. Three seconds and then everything is new again. Sometimes Sarah envied that.

"Call it," she said. "And take the fish."

She ended the call before he could respond. The screen went black, reflecting her own face back at her—old enough to know better, young enough to still want things she couldn't name. Outside, someone somewhere was playing catch. The sound of a ball hitting leather carried through the open window, and Sarah stood there, in the quiet of a room that was hers again, waiting for whatever came next.