Winter.
She sees a man down the path, wearing a Botanical Garden uniform and carrying a rake, speaking at her. An open trash bag of dead leaves at his feet.
Excuse me? she says.
Winter’s coming.
Yes, she says. You need to refill the food machine.
Not my job, he says. He drags a rake along the bed of sand she’d disturbed.
She resumes her watch of the water. They have to be there, she thinks. There has to be a way to get their attention, to lure.
No, winter they take the fish away, he tells her. No point waiting.
Oh.
River here’s too shallow to keep them warm.
Where do they take them?
He shrugs. Safe place. Bring them back come spring.
His bed is smoothed into rows once again, every pebble in place. He moves on with his bag of leaves.
Somewhere protected, then, a safe, warm place. That’s good. She wonders how they gathered up all those writhing fish. Someone with a net came, yes, balloon-scooped them along a slow sweep of water, lulling them, then carefully up to a safe and warm elsewhere. No hooks, of course. Not if the goal is bring them back whole come spring. Keep them alive, unhurt. She’d cried when her little fish was hooked, when she’d realized what she’d done. She’d made such a fuss. Other fishing men on the boat, laughing, paying no attention, ripping metal hooks from jaws or cutting through scaled white bellies with gleaming knives, dropping bright wet guts in bloody buckets, on deck. Other fish lying on planks, gaping mouths working against air, gills clenching then loose. And the little twisting rainbow fish in her cold hand, screaming. Her uncle suddenly there, I’m here, don’t be scared, he’d said.
But it’s screaming, she’d said, shaking. It’s screaming, help it, can’t you hear?
Let go, let go, taking the fish and showing her he could unhook the fish free, It’s okay, see? gently with his big fingers, snipping the line and working the cruel barb out with care, rinsing away thin blood to show her it was whole and good again. See? he’d said, holding her close and warming her as she gulped for air, Everything’s okay now. He leaned over the edge of the boat, dropped the little fish home.
We don’t have to fish anymore. We’ll do something else. Whatever you want.
He’d wiped her teary cheeks, let her hiccup in his face, squeezed her hand in his massive fishy one. And they’d watched the fish swim away. She’d clutched on to his thumb.
Yes, something fun, he’d said, patting her. Just the two of us.
I’M SO SORRY, the nurse’s aide tells her. We tried to get hold of you.
He places his plump hand on her arm without asking.
Excuse me? she says. She drops her sweater on the hallway floor, to have an excuse to pull away.
He passed on. About an hour ago. Very sudden. I am so sorry.
She hears the Go! click in her head. She can count final seconds now. The aide takes her to see him, again without asking. He is alone in a different room, small, chilled, in the basement. He is still in a regular hospital bed, not on a slab, lying under a neatly draped sheet that bulges across his belly. The tubes and monitors have been unhooked, are gone. There is the promised air of a dignified end.
Would you like to see his face?
She shakes her head. She is cold in this room, feels only numb.
I understand, the aide says. That’s fine. Everyone deals in their own way.
Yes, she says. What happens now?
We’ll need you to sign some forms. I’ll go get them. Leave you two alone a moment.
Thank you, she says. Yes.
The aide pats her shoulder and she wills herself not to flinch. He walks off, his feet squeaking across the tiled floor.
Were you with him? she asks after him.
Oh, yes. Don’t you worry, he wasn’t alone.
That’s good. I didn’t want that. I never wanted that.
Of course not, the aide says.
I thought I should be here for him, you know? It was the least I could do.
Don’t feel guilty, hon, you did everything you could. Don’t you let that eat you up.
She nods, then asks:
Did he say anything?
The aide shakes his head. It was a very peaceful end, he says.
Good, she says.
Now she can feel it, the peace. She can call the Neptune Society, fill out the final date, use her rubber stamp, send all those forms off and away and be done with it. A peaceful end, yes. Nothing said. Nothing more to feel guilty about. She should remember to send the aide something, she thinks. A big box of chocolates or those hard candies, all for him, a special treat.
Anyone else you’d like me to call? the aide asks.
No. There’s no other family. Just the two of us.
He nods, smiles understandingly, leaves.
She takes a handful of sheet, careful not to touch his bulk, and folds it down to reveal his dead rubber mask of a face. He is very still. His eyes and mouth are closed. She looks for a flicker, an eyelid’s twitch. There’s nothing. Let go, let go, she thinks. But she has to be sure. She moves aside the sheet, places two careful fingertips on the inside of his cooling wrist. Nothing. She watches the sheet resting over his chest, slowly counts Mississippi seconds to one hundred, waiting for a rise and fall that doesn’t come before she is convinced.
No, it’s only almost over, she realizes. She isn’t quite done yet.
THE LITTLE RIVER is scaled with crisp brown leaves. The Garden feels wintry, fully abandoned. She takes her place on the bridge and opens the plastic box: gritty bits and flakes, grays and blacks. She leans across the rail; there is no breeze and the ashes slide straight down into water, onto floating leaves, no comical blowing of puffs into face or hair as she’s seen in movies. She takes a deep breath, fills her lungs with relief. She can go, let go. She breathes, and then she sees a blink of red. An autumn leaf, it must be. A wet red flash again, a surfacing ripple, leaves floating clear. A black eye gazing at her through water. The red fish is gliding, calm, watching. It swims a slow, helix’d path, there but demanding nothing. Obscured by floating leaves, then appearing again. They must have forgotten about this fish, left it behind and no one noticed. Maybe they just couldn’t catch it, because it was so slippery, so strong. She should tell someone, she thinks.
She looks around; there is no one to tell. The fish is gone now, hidden again. Maybe they wouldn’t even believe her. Or care. She’d tried to tell them about the fish before. How the fish was screaming, frightened, trapped. And how no one saw or helped. But her uncle was there, she told them, he heard her, saw her, so gentle to the little fish, so careful to take away the sharp hook and not cause any more pain. She’d tried to tell about his warm hands, holding her close. But her father needed to get to the drugstore for her brother’s inhaler. Her mother on the phone, pleading, her sister threatening to leave rehab. They couldn’t listen about the little fish. So she’d told another story. About her uncle driving her home, after their fishing trip. Just the two of them. He’d been paying such extra attention to her lately. Taking her for special adventures, special treats. Telling her she was such a good girl, she deserved it. Telling her she was very special to him. Her parents heard that part. So she kept telling. She told them about stopping for ice cream on the way home. About her uncle pulling off the road in the dark. About the fun game he wanted them to play together. She told them about frightened, about trapped, about pain. About his fat hands, and what they did to her. Her parents listened hard to that story. Paid attention. Such turmoil then. Her parents yelling into the phone, the threat of violence, of legal dispute. She heard her uncle’s voice over the phone, the last time, pleading with her parents. Such a fuss she caused. And all hers, this time. Because she was so special. For a while. Her uncle exiled in the end, a small sacrifice. Banished alone to that tiny room. Like cutting loose and throwing back a wounded, bloodied little fish. But then it simply swims away, disappears below the smoothing surface. In the end, it’s like nothing ever happened at all.