What Remains in the Tank

The third day after Elena moved out, it rained hard enough that water pooled against the baseboards of the living room where her cardboard boxes had sat just hours before. I watched it seep toward the empty space where the television used to be, before I'd unplugged everything and coiled the cable into a perfect, venomous loop on the floor. Cutting cable had been her idea—something about mindful consumption, about reclaiming time—but now the silent apartment felt less mindful and more like a tomb.

Barnaby, the dog we'd adopted together when we were still that couple who believed love could be documented in Instagram posts, pressed his warm weight against my leg. He'd been sleeping in the spot where she used to read, his gray muzzle resting on the Persian rug she'd spent three months hunting down at estate sales. The loyalty of dogs is their cruelty, I thought—how they make you confront exactly what you've lost.

I walked to the kitchen to refill his water bowl and found myself staring at the goldfish tank on the counter. It was the last thing of hers remaining, a single gloomily orange fish she'd won at some company picnic where I'd declined to attend, claiming a deadline I couldn't push. The fish, absurdly named Nietzsche, had survived three apartment moves, a week without food when we went to Paris and the pet sitter forgot, and whatever microscopic ecosystem tragedies occurred inside its six gallons of artificially cycled water.

Nietzsche floated near the glass, mouth opening and closing in what looked like judgment. Elena had texted that morning: "When are you coming by with the fish? I can't take him until next weekend."

I typed back: "I'll figure something out," though I had no intention of driving forty minutes to hand over a fish that represented everything about our relationship I couldn't articulate—how she collected living things and I collected deadlines, how her love was expansive enough to include a carnival goldfish while mine was precisely calibrated, transactional, insufficient.

Barnaby whined at the door to go out, and I grabbed his leash, my eyes still on the fish. Nietzsche swam to the surface, gulping at the thin layer of air between water and glass cover. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I'd pack up the fish in that plastic bag full of tank water, drive it to her new place, and finally be free of everything that reminded me of her.

But tonight, I'd feed him. Tonight, I'd stand here and watch another living thing swim in circles, alone in a tank too small for his actual needs, and pretend I couldn't relate at all.