What the Goldfish Remembered

The goldfish floated不动 in its bowl, suspended in cloudy water like a thought half-formed. Elena watched it from the kitchen counter, the spinach wilting in the colander beside her. Three years of marriage, and this was what they'd become: two people circling each other in a too-small tank, neither one willing to break the surface.

"You're spying on me again," Marcus said from the doorway.

"I'm watching a fish die, Marcus. There's a difference."

He'd lost so much hair in the past year — not thinning, really, but gone strange and brittle, like he'd been swimming in that same cloudy water. She remembered when it had been thick enough to run her fingers through, back when they'd tangled together in strangers' sheets and believed they were invincible.

"The fish is fine," he said. "It's just resting."

She thought about the pyramid scheme he'd dragged them into last spring. The meetings in hotel conference rooms, the overheated rooms smelling of desperate optimism and cheap cologne. He'd been so certain, then. That certainty had been what she fell in love with, eight years ago in a bar in Chicago. Now it just exhausted her.

"He's not resting," she said. "He's forgotten how to swim."

Marcus came closer, his shadow falling across the counter. "I talked to my mother today."

"And?"

"She's selling the house."

The spinach suddenly felt very heavy in her hands. His mother's house — the last solid thing between them and actual ruin. They'd been borrowing against it for six months, Marcus insisting he'd make it all back, that the pyramid would pay out, that people just needed to believe.

"She can't," Elena said.

"She is."

"Then where are we supposed to—" She stopped herself. They'd had this conversation a dozen times. Always circular, always ending in the same place.

The goldfish stirred suddenly, a flash of orange in the murky water. It darted to the surface, gasping, then sank again.

"Maybe that's us," Marcus said quietly. "Maybe we're just running out of air."

Elena set down the spinach. "Or maybe we need a bigger tank."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, for the first time in months. "Is that what you want?"

"I don't know what I want anymore." She touched his arm, the hair there thin against her fingertips. "But I know I don't want this."

The fish moved again, stronger this time, weaving through the plastic plants like it was remembering something important about how to live.

"We could start over," Marcus said. "Somewhere new."

"With what money?"

"With whatever we have left. With each other."

Outside, the sky was turning that particular shade of purple that comes just before true darkness. Elena thought about all the things she'd given up for him, all the things he'd sacrificed for this impossible dream of theirs. Maybe it wasn't too late to build something different. Something real.

"The spinach is still good," she said. "I could make dinner."

Marcus reached for her hand, his palm warm against hers. "I'd like that."

The goldfish rose to the surface and took a breath.