What We Kept

The spinach was stuck between your teeth when you told me you'd lost everything. I remember reaching across the dinner table—the good table, before we sold it—and you flinched. That flinch stayed with me longer than the money.

We'd talked about the pyramid scheme over cheap wine for months. You called it an 'investment opportunity.' I called it what it was: desperation in a suit. But you needed to believe, and I needed to let you.

Now we're down to the goldfish bowl on the windowsill and the dog at my feet. The goldfish—stupid name, I know—circles endlessly in his five gallons of filtered water, and I can't decide if I envy him or pity him. At least his bowl is clean. At least his circles have purpose.

Sarah's coming by tomorrow with the papers. She says she can get us out of the apartment by Friday. 'Fresh start,' she called it. But I keep looking at the dog—old, arthritic, smelling faintly of something sweet like decay—and thinking about what we'd actually be starting from.

Last night you reached for me in the dark. Your hand found my shoulder, then my breast, then my cheek. You didn't say anything. You didn't have to. Your fingers smelled like the spinach you'd cooked for dinner—bitter, earthy, honest. I let them stay there, counting the seconds between your breaths, wondering if you were thinking about her or the money or the way things used to be.

The goldfish died this morning.

I found him floating when I went to feed him, orange scales catching the morning light like tiny coins. I flushed him before you woke up. Some things, I decided, shouldn't be shared anymore.

You're making breakfast now. Spinach and eggs, the same breakfast you made the morning you told me about the investment. The dog is watching you, tail thumping against the cabinet door. He doesn't know about the papers or the money or the things we've stopped saying. He just knows you're the person who feeds him.

Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's everything.