What the Goldfish Knew

The dinner congealed on plates—wilted spinach, overcooked salmon, the kind of meal that says 'I tried' without meaning it. Across from me, David's iPhone buzzed for the third time in ten minutes. He didn't check it. That was new.

'Are you going to get that?' I asked, my voice flat.

'Work can wait,' he said, cutting into his fish.

The goldfish bowl on the sideboard caught the light, its orange inhabitant opening and closing its mouth in silent accusation. We'd won it at a carnival three years ago, the night we conceived our daughter who now slept down the hall. The goldfish had outlasted our passion.

I noticed something white caught between David's front teeth. Spinach.

I didn't tell him.

'There's something I need to explain,' he started, then stopped.

My phone lit up with a notification: 'Find My Device - David's iPhone near 45th and Vine.' But David was sitting right here. Unless he had two iPhones.

Unless he'd left his real iPhone somewhere else, somewhere on 45th and Vine, and the one beside his plate was a burner. Unless he'd been meeting someone regularly enough to warrant a second phone, and tonight he'd forgotten to leave it at her place.

I remembered the charging cable I'd found in his coat pocket last week—the wrong kind for his phone. The sudden late nights. The shower immediately upon returning home.

'David,' I said, 'what's on 45th and Vine?'

He froze. 'What?'

'Your other iPhone,' I said quietly. 'The one that's currently near 45th and Vine. Unless you're at two places at once.'

The silence stretched, taut as a cable about to snap.

'There's a woman,' he finally said. 'It's not what you think.'

'She has a pet fox,' I said suddenly. The random detail had come to me in a flash—something I'd seen on his actual phone weeks ago, a photo of a woman with a fox on a leash, exotic and impractical and utterly not me. 'You met her on that business trip to Portland. She's an artist, wears vintage fur coats even though she pretends to care about animals. She doesn't want children.'

David's face went pale. 'How did you—'

'I've always known,' I said. 'I just didn't want to believe it.' I gestured to the goldfish. 'Even he knows. Look at him.'

The goldfish swam to the front of the bowl, staring at us with bulbous eyes that seemed to hold infinite judgment.

'The spinach,' David said, reaching for his napkin. 'You could have told me.'

'Some things,' I said, standing up, 'are more telling when you don't mention them.'