What We Keep

The pool had been drained for winter, its bottom coated with leaves—rotting maple, skeletal oak, the debris of seasons we'd stopped noticing together. Inside, I watched Sarah arrange papaya slices on a platter, her movements precise, practiced. She was wearing that dress, the one she'd bought for our anniversary.

"The Hendersons are bringing the spinach salad," she said, not looking at me. "Don't forget."

I nodded, though we both knew there was nothing to remember. Our conversations had become like this—scripts performed for an audience that had stopped watching.

The fox came at dusk. We'd seen it three times that week, slinking along the property line, its coat brilliant against the gray landscape. Tonight it stood at the edge of the drained pool, watching us through the sliding glass door.

"There it is again," I said.

"It's beautiful," Sarah replied, and for a moment I thought she meant the fox. Then she turned back to the papaya, her fingers leaving prints on the fruit's flesh like invisible bruises.

In the dining room, the goldfish aquarium hummed with filtered light. Two fish, one orange as a flame, one pale as moonlight. They'd been a wedding gift from her mother, lived seven years in their glass universe. I'd once read that goldfish have three-second memories. A lie, but a comforting one.

"Robert called," Sarah said suddenly. "From work."

My chest tightened. "What did he want?"

"Nothing." She finally looked at me, her eyes reflecting the aquarium's glow. "He just wanted to know if you were happy."

Outside, the fox turned away from the glass, moving toward the property line, toward whatever world existed beyond ours. The papaya sat untouched on the counter, its seeds arranged in perfect, useless geometry. Somewhere, spinach was being washed, tossed, prepared for a meal that might never happen.

"Are you?" I asked.

Sarah didn't answer. She just reached for the papaya, sank her fingernail into its skin, and waited for me to decide what came next.