I’m sorry, my grandfather said. I deserve all that.
Then it was quiet again. I thought Steve would say something, defend my grandfather, but he didn’t. If he had, I think he would have lost my mother right then.
My grandfather handed his menu to the waiter, then Steve did the same, and my mother, and the tables around us began talking quietly again.
And for you? the waiter asked me. His voice was barely more than a whisper, and I felt sorry for him.
I can’t eat fish, I said. I love them too much.
Oh, he said, and then my grandfather said, I’m so sorry, Caitlin. I forgot. Do you have anything on the menu that’s not fish?
We do have a burger, and also a simple pasta marinara.
Pasta, please, I said, and my grandfather said, Me too, instead of the fish.
My mother folded her arms and looked down at her napkin. I’m sorry, she said when the waiter had left. That was too much. I came here to punish you, and apparently to punish Caitlin, also, without even realizing it. But that’s not me. I don’t want to be mean like that.
Steve put his arm around her, and she leaned onto his shoulder. She was starting to cry, but careful not to make any sound. I was afraid to move, afraid to say anything, and I think my grandfather was too. So we just sat there and waited until she wiped at her eyes and sat up straight again.
What do you think you’ll study? my grandfather asked, maybe just to break the silence. But it was good that he was the one to speak.
Oh, my mother said. I have to do my GED first. I can probably take a course to study for that. Then maybe a community college for the first two years, something easy to get into, and I’d like to work hard and move on to something better for the last two years. But I don’t know what subject yet.
We can do our homework together, I said.
My mother smiled. Yeah. That’ll be fun, sweet pea. But your old mother is out of practice, so you’ll have to encourage her. Right now, I can’t really imagine doing homework.
We hadn’t touched the bread, but Steve passed it around now and poured a bit of olive oil onto each of our small plates.
A dense white bread better than any I’d had before, and oil that was green and not at all like what we had at home. I love this oil, I said.
Our little gourmand, Steve said.
I just thought I might be a chef, my mother said. But then I realized they have late nights. And doctors go through endless residencies and night shifts. And lawyers have ridiculous hours also and have to fight every day. And business school leads to the biggest shark tank. Are there any jobs that don’t involve giving up your life?
My hours are all right, Steve said. You can make choices. I went for less money and more free time.
The key is to escape doing labor for hourly pay, my grandfather said. I never escaped that, and I’m sorry you were stuck there, too, for so many years. Any sacrifice you make to escape is worth it, I think. How many tens of thousands of hours was I reminded of exactly what I was, standing over an engine, working with my hands. The problem was that my thoughts didn’t count, and who I was didn’t count, and there was no shape to any of the work. Just an endless series of engines that someone else could have fixed. It was like not being there but having to be there anyway, and that feeling from work infected the rest of my life, even though I like working on engines. It was the fact of not being free and not mattering. So I hope you’ll do something that doesn’t make you disappear.
Thank you, my mother said quietly. That does help. That’s how it was for me too. I was there but not there.
Well you won’t be going back Monday morning, Steve said. That’s pretty cool.
Yeah, my mother said, but she looked overwhelmed and tired. Slumped down in her chair.
The king crab arrived then. Enormous legs white and red on a long platter, and my mother sat up.
That’s a big one, Steve said.
And here’s some melted butter, the waiter said, setting down a small steel cup. Enjoy. And then he was gone, out of there quickly.
We can share this, my mother said.
I can’t, I said.
It’s not a fish.
I know. But they’re in the aquarium. I don’t love them in the same way, but still I think of those legs moving, reaching up toward the glass.
Okay, my mother said. Please don’t say anything more. I want to enjoy. I don’t want to imagine my food moving. My mother had a bit of a smile when she said it, though, and it felt like the weight was off us. Steve grinned and grabbed a leg and snapped it.
You can use the olive oil instead of butter, he said. Healthier, and I think it actually tastes a lot better. He poured oil onto his bread plate and my mother nodded and he poured onto hers, also, and they dipped long sections of white meat edged in red. Meat made of small strands all radiating from the center, as if the crab had been born in a burst of light, a small sudden explosion on the ocean floor, unnoticed. That’s what I saw then, darkness and cold at depth and each crab winking into existence. They seemed as alien as that, not born of this world.
~ ~ ~
We all went to bed early that night. I think we were avoiding the possibility of another argument. The house quiet. My grandfather just on the other side of my bedroom wall, so close. Our heads maybe two feet apart as we slept, and I wondered whether he had done this on purpose.
My mother and Steve behind the other wall. I was in the middle, safe. I wished we could be like nurse sharks or clown loaches, just piled up together in the corner of one room, sleeping on top of each other, suspended in the one element, no separation of air, but at least we were all here under one roof and rooms touching. Only Shalini was missing.
It felt very strange to sleep in a new home. Eyes closed, snuggled under the enormous comforter, the bed so much softer than any I’d experienced before, something I could sink into, but I was trying to feel the outlines of the house, trying to reach into every corner to make it familiar. Like sonar in dolphins, closing their eyes and feeling their way through darkness, knowing shape and void. Was it a sense like touch or like sight?
And sharks, able to sense electromagnetic fields. Brains tiny and prehistoric, without feeling or memory or thought but somehow knowing the electrical weight of every living thing, even the faint movement of a fish’s gills or the beating of its small, simple heart. I wanted to know this, too, to have the darkness light up with every movement and breath. I could understand it only as a kind of vision. Impossible to imagine the contact of a new sense.
I wanted to live submerged. The problem was air, too thin and cold, all contact lost. Shalini seemed forever away, unreachable, and even my mother and grandfather. The room would become solid again, walls something that could not be reached through, everything hidden, and I’d open my eyes and see only faint outlines of all that enclosed.
I finally slept, somehow, and when I awoke it was to the smell of bacon. My room cold and comforter soft and warm, and this was perfect, to hide away, smelling breakfast.
I waited until my mother knocked at my door, softly, and then opened it and peered in. Morning, sweet pea, she said. Steve made pancakes.
Mm, I said.
My mother came in and sat beside me on the bed, brushed the hair back from my face. How do you like your new home? she asked.
I love it.
Me too. It’s different to live in a nice place, to look up at the dark wood beams in the ceiling. To not have everything cheap. I can’t explain it, but I feel different inside, as if a nice floor and this furniture can change what I’m worth, the core of me. I know it shouldn’t be like that, but I feel it anyway. A kind of warmth, or relaxing, like it’s easier to breathe.