What Floats, What Sinks

She stands at the kitchen counter at 7:03 AM, same as every morning, sorting supplements into her husband's daily pill case. The vitamin D capsules—his bones, his mood, his everything—click into their plastic compartments. He used to take them without complaint. Now he asks why he needs them, as if explaining the necessity of health maintenance is some kind of marital burden she's chosen to carry alone.

In the living room, their dog lifts his head from the carpet, hearing something she can't. The dog is fourteen now, hips stiff, muzzle gray. He was the ring bearer at their wedding, the puppy who bounded down the aisle with a satin pillow tied to his collar. Now he just waits, either for food or for death, she's not sure which.

The goldfish bowl sits on the windowsill behind him. She won it at a carnival twelve years ago, during that weekend they pretended they were still happy. The fish—goldfish, the man had called it, as if its species were its name—has survived three apartment moves, two miscarriages, and her husband's affair with the accounting assistant. The fish should have died years ago. Everything else of substance has.

'You're staring at the fish again,' her husband says from the doorway. He's wearing the robe she bought him for his birthday four years ago, faded now, thin at the elbows.

'I'm thinking about getting a dog,' she lies.

'We have a dog,' he says, confused, gesturing toward the golden retriever who has settled back onto the carpet.

'I know,' she says. 'I meant a puppy. Something new.'

He rubs his hand over his face, the way he does when he's tired of having conversations. 'You know what they say about men who can't remember to take their vitamins. They forget other things too.'

She pours water into her glass and watches the surface settle. The goldfish drifts near the glass, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition.

'What do they say about women who stay?' she asks.

He doesn't answer. He never does.

The dog sighs in his sleep, dreaming of chasing something, or maybe just of running away.