What Remains in the Water

The goldfish had outlived them all. Six years of silent orange swimming in a corner of Mara's apartment, oblivious to the divorce, the layoffs, the antidepressants that failed. She dropped a vitamin tablet into the tank each morning — habit more than hope. The fish was supposed to die when Mark left. It was supposed to be temporary.

Her iPhone buzzed at 3 AM. Not Mark. Never Mark anymore. Just the team in Singapore, demanding answers she'd been giving for a decade. The blue light illuminated her palm where her lifeline used to seem promising, back when she believed in that sort of thing. She traced the lines with her thumb, the way that street reader had done on that drunk weekend in New Orleans, before the mortgage, before everything calcified into routine.

"You'll live a long life," the woman had said, pressing a toothpick to Mara's sweating palm. "But you'll feel like you're underwater."

Mara dropped the phone. It slid under the couch where the goldfish couldn't see it. Sometimes she envied the fish. No promotions to chase. No fertility appointments marked in calendars. No existential dread in the small hours, just swimming in circles, eating flakes, watching her through curved glass while she aged out of her own life.

The vitamin tablet dissolved slowly, releasing a cloud of yellow into the water. Tomorrow she'd call the realtor. Tomorrow she'd forward the Singapore emails to someone younger. Tomorrow she'd flush the fish because it wasn't fair to make it witness whatever came next.

Tonight, she pressed her palm against the cool glass and watched the orange shape glide through the medicine-colored water, endless and unknowable, swimming toward nothing at all.