What We Feed Each Other

Margaret stood in the kitchen watching her goldfish circle the bowl—always three inches from the glass, never touching it. Six years of this. Six years of Marcus coming home late with excuses that smelled like another woman's perfume, though he claimed it was just the subway.

The cat, Bast, wound through Margaret's legs, purring like she understood. Margaret had stopped taking her vitamins three months ago. What was the point of prolonging this particular flavor of loneliness?

"You're staring at the fish again," Marcus said from the doorway. His dog, a Golden Retriever named Lucky who loved everyone except Margaret, stood beside him, tail thumping against the doorframe.

"He's going to die, Marcus," she said, not turning around. "The goldfish. They don't live forever in bowls."

"We'll get another one."

That was always his solution. Replace what broke. Buy another. Pretend nothing had shattered.

The goldfish went still. Not dead—just floating, fins barely moving, mouth opening and closing in the water's surface. Gasping.

Margaret felt it in her own chest—that same desperate inhale, that same sense that the air wasn't quite enough anymore.

She turned to face her husband. Really looked at him for the first time in months. The gray threading his temples. The exhaustion he tried to hide with expensive cologne. The way he couldn't quite meet her eyes.

"I'm not getting another fish," she said. "And I'm not getting another marriage either."

The cat jumped onto the counter, knocking the vitamin bottle into the sink. It clattered like coins in a fountain, like wishes that never come true.

Marcus's dog whined, pressing against his leg. Marcus stood frozen, his hand halfway to her, then dropping to his side.

"I didn't know you felt that way," he whispered.

"That's the problem," she said. "You never asked."

That night, Margaret lay in bed while Marcus slept on the couch. The goldfish was dead by morning. She buried it in the garden with a plastic spoon, the cat watching from the windowsill, the dog silent for once in the yard.

She took her vitamins with breakfast. Then she called her sister to ask about apartment rentals downtown. The air finally seemed breathable again.