What Remains Floating

The padel court echoed with the sharp rhythm of balls hitting walls, but Elena's thoughts were elsewhere. Across the net, David served with the same mechanical precision he'd applied to their marriage for fifteen years—reliable, impenetrable, and utterly devoid of surprise.

'You're not even trying,' he said afterward, wiping sweat from his forehead with the monogrammed towel she'd given him last Christmas. A gift that screamed of obligation rather than desire.

'I'm tired, David.'

'You're always tired lately.' He picked a piece of spinach from between his teeth, examining it with casual disgust, oblivious to how his tongue had failed to reach it during their dinner conversation two nights ago. She'd wanted to tell him then, wanted to point out this small thing he'd missed, but hadn't. That was them now—not saying what needed saying.

At home, the goldfish floated near the surface of its bowl, its orange scales dulled in the dying light of their living room. Their daughter had left it behind when she moved to college eight months ago, promising to come back for it. Neither of them had the heart to flush it, though neither remembered to feed it more than twice a week.

Elena watched the fish make another sluggish loop around the glass prison.

'I think it's dying,' David said from behind her, his voice carrying that same tone he used when discussing the mortgage or his mother's increasingly fragile health.

'Everything dies.' She turned to face him. 'Some things just do it more slowly than others.'

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent gasps. David reached toward the bowl, then stopped.

'We should get another,' he said finally. 'When this one goes. For when Sophie comes home.'

'Sophie's not coming home for Christmas. She told me yesterday. She's going to his parents' house.'

David's hand hovered over the water, fingers trembling slightly. The fish made one last, desperate surge toward the surface, then sank.

'We're terrible at this,' Elena said quietly.

'At what?'

'At keeping things alive.'

He looked at her then—really looked at her—for the first time in months. Behind his glasses, something flickered. Recognition. Fear. Perhaps the beginning of something that might, with enough effort, become hope.

'So what do we do instead?' he asked.

The question hung between them like a serve neither was sure they could return. Outside, the neighborhood went dark. Inside, the dead fish drifted slowly toward the bottom, no longer needing to be saved.