What Remains

The goldfish died three days before David moved out. It was a carnival prize from our first date, lived seven years longer than our marriage. I found it floating at the top of the bowl while David was at work, probably negotiating the bull market he'd been riding since we met. I flushed it without calling him.

That was the first mercy I showed myself.

Now the apartment echoes with things he didn't take: his childhood comic books, the expensive espresso machine he used twice, the dog's leather leash still hanging by the door. Buster died last winter—I gave him the good death, the one we couldn't give my father. David was at a conference. I held the old golden retriever until his breathing stopped, then arranged the cremation alone. Some things you don't interrupt a career for.

The cable guy is here now, a young man with nervous hands and a name tag that says "Marcus." He's disconnecting the service David insisted on—three hundred channels we never watched. I watch Marcus work while I drink lukewarm coffee and think about how much of my life has been someone else's preference manifest.

"You're all set," Marcus says, coiling the thick black cable like a snake he's taming. "You can sign up for streaming, you know. It's cheaper."

I nod. I know. Everything is cheaper now.

The apartment feels smaller without David's things, without his ego filling every room. I stand in the kitchen where we fought about money, about careers, about whether I was "supportive enough" of his ambition. He called me stubborn—I told him he was charging toward something that wouldn't remember his name.

He was right about one thing, though. The market crashed yesterday. His portfolio, our portfolio, down forty percent. I wonder if he's staring at his phone in that hotel room, watching numbers that were never really ours evaporate. I hope he is. I hope he understands that some things—goldfish, marriages, fathers—die regardless of how carefully you tend them.

Marcus is gone. The cable lies disconnected on the floor like an exiled intestine. The apartment is mine. The quiet is mine. I pour another cup of coffee and stand by the window, watching the city wake up, thinking about what comes next, and for the first time in years, it's entirely up to me.