What We Keep in the Water

She left the goldfish in the bowl when she moved out. Let Matthew keep it—he'd need the company. The fish was her idea anyway, something to fill the silence of their too-large apartment, a splash of orange in a room full of beige. Now it floated alone, mouth opening and closing like it was trying to say something it couldn't quite remember.

The resort was her mother's suggestion. "Get some sun," she'd said, as if UV rays could extract the residue of three years wasted. And here she was, standing at the breakfast buffet in a sarong that cost more than her first car, contemplating papaya.

"You look like someone died," said a woman beside her. She was older, maybe fifty, with silver hair and the kind of tan that comes from money, not metabolism. "They didn't. Just a marriage."

The woman laughed. "Same thing, sweetie. The papaya's excellent today."

She took some. It was sweet, slightly musky, the seeds black and glossy like small thoughts she shouldn't think. She thought about Matthew's hands, how they'd felt when they stopped touching her. How he'd looked when she told him: not angry, not sad, just—relieved. That was the part that still twisted in her gut like something alive.

Her palm itched. The psychic in town had told her, yesterday, that she'd have three great loves in her life. She was thirty-two. Matthew was number two. The woman had been ancient, eyes filmed over with cataracts, smelling of sage and something medicinal. "The third comes when you stop looking."

Easy for her to say.

She walked to the beach. Tourists were swimming in the resort's marked area, bright splashes against the blue. Beyond them, the ocean darkened, depth swallowing light. She wondered how far down you'd have to go before it stopped mattering that you'd chosen wrong. Before it stopped mattering that you'd let someone love you halfway, that you'd accepted it because you were tired of waiting for the real thing.

A fox stood at the edge of the property, watching her. It shouldn't have been here—wrong continent, wrong habitat. But there it was, russet coat gleaming, eyes amber and intelligent. It tilted its head, studied her with something like understanding.

"You look like you're leaving too," she said.

The fox didn't answer. Just turned and vanished into the brush, a flash of bright against all that green. Gone before she could convince herself she'd really seen it.

That night she called Matthew. "How's the fish?"

"You named him Salvador, in case you forgot. He's fine. I'm fine. The apartment's—we're managing."

"Good."

"Are you?"

She thought about the papaya, the fox that couldn't exist, the lifeline on her palm. About swimming until her arms gave out, until she reached something that felt like shore.

"I will be."

She hung up. Outside, the ocean breathed against the sand. Somewhere, a goldfish opened its mouth, testing the water. Somewhere, a fox moved through shadows. She closed her eyes and let herself drift, suspended between what was and what might be, weightless as anything that's learned to live in the deep places.