What We Keep

Margaret stood at the kitchen counter, scooping seeds from a ripe papaya with surgical precision. The fruit's flesh was the color of bruised sunset, same as the bruise that had bloomed on Elena's forearm two weeks ago. Outside, November rain streaked the windowpane like tear tracks.

"You're not eating," Elena said from the table. Her voice was thinner now, stripped of its usual resonance. The chemotherapy had taken her hair first, then her appetite, but not, apparently, her concern for whether Margaret was taking care of herself.

Margaret dumped spinach into the blender—organic, pre-washed, the kind Elena used to mock her for buying. "I'm fine. You need the calories more than I do."

Elena laughed, that dry rustle of a laugh that made Margaret's chest tighten. "Calories. As if calories matter at this stage. Feed it to the goldfish. They've got more life in them than I do."

The goldfish bowl sat on the windowsill, two orange ghosts swimming in endless circles. Elena had bought them on a whim three years ago after her divorce, something alive in her apartment that wouldn't demand anything. They'd survived three moves, a boyfriend who'd forgotten to feed them for a week, and now this. Margaret had changed their water twice weekly since the diagnosis, because Elena was too tired to care.

"Stop it," Margaret said, slamming the blender lid down harder than she intended. "Just—stop saying things like that."

"I'm not being morbid, Mags. I'm being practical. You've always hated practical."

"I'm your friend. I'm allowed to hate practical."

Elena's face softened. She reached across the table, her hand trembling slightly, and covered Margaret's. "I know. That's why you're here, and my sister is handling the paperwork."

The blender hummed. Margaret watched the papaya and spinach whirl together into something that looked like health but tasted like goodbye. She poured two glasses anyway.

"To practicality," Elena said, raising her glass with a weak smile. "And to friends who let us be impractical."

They drank in silence as rain washed the city clean, goldfish swimming circles around nothing at all, both of them pretending this wasn't the last time they'd do this. Some things you keep feeding. Some things you just let swim until they can't anymore.