What Remains

The goldfish floated in its bowl, orange and oblivious, while Sarah and Mark divided their marriage on the dining table.

"That's fine," Mark said, when she claimed the good knives. "Take the wine glasses too. But I'm keeping the coffee maker."

"Deal," Sarah said. "But I want the fish."

Mark looked up, really looked at her, for the first time that afternoon. "Why?"

"Because Emma won it. At the fair. That day."

The day had been perfect - cotton candy and ferris wheels, Emma shrieking with delight as she tossed the ping pong ball and won the goldfish. Six months before the diagnosis. Two years before the funeral.

"Fine," Mark said. "Take the fish."

Sarah took the fish home to an apartment that felt too large and too quiet. She named him Lucky, though she wasn't sure who was supposed to be lucky anymore.

The cable bill arrived the next week. Mark's name was still on the account, alongside hers. Their last monthly connection, a fifty-dollar reminder that somewhere, in a house that used to be hers, someone was watching shows they used to watch together.

Jenna called that evening. Their friend, the one who had chosen sides and chose Mark, the one who hadn't called in six months.

"I'm sorry," Jenna said. "I should have - I didn't know what to say."

"It's okay," Sarah said, watching Lucky swim lazy circles. "People do what they need to do."

"Are you coming to the party? Mark's birthday?"

Sarah looked at the fish, at the cable box showing a show she wasn't watching, at the empty spaces where Emma's drawings used to hang.

"No," she said. "I don't think I will."

After she hung up, she cancelled the cable. The operator asked if she was sure.

"Yes," Sarah said. "I'm sure."

She fed the fish. One thing at a time. That's how you kept living, when what you wanted was to stop.