Three Second Memory

The goldfish circled its bowl, endless laps in illuminated water. Marcus watched it while his wife packed her things in the bedroom upstairs. The fish had been her idea—a therapy pet for their anniversary, back when they still believed in symbolic gestures. Now it was just another thing he'd forget to feed without her reminder.

He swallowed his daily vitamin with lukewarm coffee. The giant pill stuck in his throat, a pharmaceutical indictment of his negligence. She'd left the bottle on the counter with a note: *Don't forget. Your health matters.* As if she hadn't spent the last three years telling him exactly what mattered, exactly how much, and in what order.

The orange on the counter had begun to shrivel. She'd bought it three days ago, peeling sections for him while he worked late. He'd barely looked up from his screen. Now the fruit sat like a small, decaying sun—bright skin dimpling, surrendering to gravity and time.

"Marcus?" She stood in the doorway, suitcase handle gripped tight. "You're going to feed it, right?"

He nodded, unable to speak around the vitamin still lodged somewhere between his throat and the hollow space where his heart used to be.

She studied him for a long moment. That same expression she'd given him when he forgot their dinner reservation, when he missed her mother's birthday, when he promised to be better and woke up the same person.

"Goldfish have a three-second memory," she said. "Maybe you're lucky."

The door clicked shut behind her. The fish kept swimming, oblivious, completing another circuit. Marcus peeled the orange, bitter juice stinging his fingers, and finally understood the difference between forgetting and letting go.