What We Feed the Silence

The goldfish died three days after she left. David found it floating on the surface of its bowl, orange scales catching morning light that suddenly felt too bright. He'd forgotten to feed it. He'd forgotten to do a lot of things lately.

He flushed it down the toilet, then stood in the kitchen eating cold spinach straight from the plastic container—something she'd never let him do. 'Use a plate,' she'd say, 'we're not animals.' But she wasn't here to say anything anymore. Her lawyer's message sat unread on his iPhone, the notification badge multiplying like cancer cells.

'You're swimming in it,' his therapist had said during their last session. 'All that unresolved grief. It's like you're drowning but you won't come up for air.'

David had nodded, checking his phone under the table. Some habits don't die; they just migrate to new devices.

That evening, he drove to the reservoir where they'd picnicked last September. The water reflected a bruised purple sky. He stood on the dock, phone buzzing in his pocket—work emails, concerned friends, her sister asking if he'd signed the papers yet. The bear of it pressed down on his chest: eighteen years reduced to paperwork and asset division.

A notification lit his screen: 'Memory from 3 years ago.' It was a photo of her holding a ridiculously small ice cream cone, laughing. He remembered that day. He remembered thinking: this is it, this is happiness. He'd been wrong.

David considered the phone in his hand, then the dark water below. Neither seemed like the right choice.

He walked back to his car instead, leaving the phone in his pocket. There would be emails tomorrow. There would be spinach to cook properly, plates to use, a life to figure out how to live alone. But not tonight.

Tonight, he drove home through the gathering dark, windows down, letting the cold air fill the silence where she used to be.