What the Goldfish Knew

She'd been running for forty-three minutes when her iPhone buzzed against her arm—the third time tonight. She didn't need to check to know who it was. David. Always David, with his careful explanations and reasonable excuses and that particular tone of voice that made her feel crazy for feeling anything at all.

The rain had started three miles back, a cold persistent drizzle that her running app failed to predict. Her lungs burned in that familiar way she'd come to crave over the past six months—since the miscarriage, since the silence in their apartment had grown louder than their conversations. David suggested therapy. She suggested running. Therapy required talking. Running required only forward motion.

The phone buzzed again. She stopped, hands on knees, gasping, and looked at the screen through rain-spattered glass. A text: *Can we talk? Please. I don't want to lose you.* Below it, a notification from her ring camera: *Motion detected at front door.*

She thought about the goldfish bowl they'd bought together last spring, before everything fell apart. They'd named it Colette after David's grandmother. 'Goldfish have terrible memories,' he'd said, pouring too much food into the bowl. 'Maybe that's a blessing.'

Maybe it was.

She'd found Colette floating two weeks ago—another small death in a year of them. David had been at a conference. She'd flushed the fish without telling him, like she'd stopped mentioning the names they'd picked out for the baby, like she'd stopped saying I love you first.

The iPhone showed her another notification: David was calling. Again.

She thought about memory, about how goldfish supposedly forgot everything every three seconds, how maybe that wasn't a disability but a superpower. To keep seeing the world as new each time. To not carry the weight of what was lost.

Her finger hovered over the green button.

She started running again instead.