What Remains

Margaret stood in the center of the living room, the divorce papers spread across the coffee table like fallen leaves. Five years of marriage reduced to signatures and asset divisions. The cat, Luna, wound through her legs, purring with abandon, as if the tension in the room were just another Sunday morning.

"You take the bear," David said, gesturing to the mounted head above the fireplace. "Your father shot it. It should stay with you."

Margaret's lip curled. "I don't want that dead thing watching me sleep. You take it."

"I'm moving into a studio apartment, Margaret. There's no room for a dead bear."

The absurdity of it all crashed over her. They were negotiating custody of taxidermy while their lives dissolved. She remembered when they'd bought the goldfish—some fleeting impulse at a pet store, two tiny orange swimmers in a plastic bag. David had named them Existence and Premise after some philosophy joke she'd never quite understood. They'd lived three years, longer than the marriage.

"What about the fox?" she asked, referring to the vintage wool coat draped over the armchair, a thrift store treasure they'd fought over at the checkout.

"Take it," David said, not meeting her eyes. "It always looked better on you anyway."

Margaret's throat tightened. It was the first genuine thing he'd said in weeks. The coat had been one of their first shared adventures—bickering affectionately in the crowded thrift store, his hands warm on her shoulders as he helped her try it on. The memory was visceral: the smell of old fabric and David's cologne, the way he'd kissed her neck in the aisle, careless of the watching shoppers.

"The cat will need her things," she said, forcing practicality. "I'll set up her litter box and scratching posts at my sister's."

"Sure. Fine. Whatever works."

Luna jumped onto the coffee table, knocking against David's phone. He didn't flinch. Margaret watched them both—the man who used to trace constellations on her back, the cat who'd slept between them every night of their married life. Soon, Luna would purr in a different apartment. The fox coat would hang in a closet alone. The bear would stare down at walls that didn't hold their shared photographs.

The goldfish were gone, but everything else remained—these objects that held five years of quiet moments, now to be sorted and boxed and moved. Margaret pressed her palm to her chest, feeling the hollow space where her future used to be.