Beyond Recognition

40

On Saturday Daphne took Ben to the Seattle Aquarium. He’d never been, and it was a place she enjoyed so much that she often went there simply to relax, to stroll and think in what to her was another world. She never took notice of the tanks, rarely read the descriptive labels; it was the fish that captivated her attention, the unflinching eyes, the pulsing gills, the gentle-paced wandering through the kelp and imitation coral. Despite her frequent visits, she didn’t know one fish from another, couldn’t tell a dolphin from a porpoise, a pilot fish from a pike.

Ben, on the other hand, was a product of TV documentaries and knew the names of the various species, as well as their feeding and mating habits. “I taped most of them late at night, once Jack had passed out, because he only liked sports and sitcoms.” He said it as if this was to be expected, and it cut to Daphne’s core. He would toss such things her way, slowly opening the door to his existence, and the wider that door opened, the more she glimpsed of what Ben accepted as a normal life, the more she ached to change his existence. It was this mutual desire to improve his environment that connected Daphne, however indirectly, to Emily Richland.

“Have you ever felt that way?” Ben said, pointing at a red snapper kissing the transparent walls of the tank. They were in what to her was the most exciting section of the aquarium, a large open room exposed to several large fish tanks that housed entire communities of oceangoing species.

“Which way is that?” she asked. She wanted to see the world through his eyes, experience the world through his developing senses.

“Trapped like that,” he answered pensively, stopping at the tank and studying the fish that appeared to be kissing the boy. “What’s it like for him, banging up against that wall? He probably can’t figure it out. And what’s he think of us? This whole other place he can see but can’t get to. Like that.” He looked deeper into the tank at the lumbering fish. “They flush seawater in here at night. It has the nutrients and stuff. It feeds them. And then they filter it out to make the water clearer so we can see them.”

“Do you feel like that, Ben? Trapped?”

“Not by you,” he clarified. “Not you. But yeah.” He pointed to the snapper, which continued to push on the clear barrier. “That’s me at my window at night, you know? Looking out at other people’s houses. Wondering what it’s like. If their lives are any different.” He led her a few feet forward but stayed with the same tank. “Emily says it doesn’t have to be that way, but I’m not so sure. People are different than what they seem. That’s just the way it is. Not Emily. Not you. But most people.”

“I don’t think you can group people together, lump them together like that.” She wondered why she and Owen discussed the next party they were supposed to attend, and here she was with a twelve-year-old discussing the hard points of life. “I think it’s possibly better to take people as individuals, weigh them on their own merits, and try not to be too judgmental.”

“Yeah, but how do you do that?” Ben questioned. “First thing I do when I meet someone is size them up. You know? Like that guy,” he said, pointing into the tank. “See him checking everyone out? Looking over there, over here. On the prowl. That’s me. He’s thinking someone’s going to sneak up and try to eat him-that’s what he’s thinking. And that’s right too, because one of those fish probably is thinking that. I’m telling you. That’s how it goes out here, too, pal. You look the other way, someone’s after your ass.”

“Watch the language,” she scolded, but Ben didn’t respond. He walked on and Daphne followed. If Owen had been here, she would have tried to lead him around, she realized. Why was she willing to follow the boy, when she didn’t like to follow anybody?

He glanced back at her. “Are you crying?”

“Allergies,” she lied.

“I wonder if fish have allergies,” he said innocently, turning back to the tank. “Check out that guy’s fin. You see that? Someone womped on him, took a chunk. That’s what I’m telling you, D. You turn your back, someone womps on you.”

He had been using this nickname for her occasionally, and she had cautioned herself not to allow its use to draw them closer-to remain professional-but in this she had failed. Boldt called her Daffy. Everyone else, even Owen, called her either by her first or last name. Only this little bundle of energy called her by that nickname. It endeared him to her.

“Can you swim?” she asked.

“Nah. Not so you’d notice. Sink to the bottom if you put me in there. I’m a retard in water. Scares me, and I start flapping around, and that’s pretty much it. Down she goes. You?”

“Yes. I swim.”

“Teach me sometime?”

“Yes,” she answered softly, wondering if this too were a lie. She thought him so special, and though it occurred to her that there were perhaps dozens, hundreds, just like him, she thought it wrong to lump people together. She refused to see it.

“If you could pick,” he said, “which one would you be?”

Such a simple question, but for her it seemed profound. She studied the inhabitants of the tank. One was long and thin and exceptionally beautiful and she singled it out for him.

“But he’s small,” Ben complained.

“She,” Daphne corrected, not knowing the fish’s sex.

“Not me. I’d go for size. Speed. That guy, maybe. I’d pick the shark, but that kind doesn’t eat other fish, only that stuff-what’s its name? — in the water.”

“Plankton.”

“Yeah, that stuff. So what’s the point of being a shark if you only eat that stuff? Maybe that guy over there,” he said, pointing. It was a big, ugly fish that looked menacing.

“Do you love her?” she asked him, having no idea where the question had come from and wishing immediately that she could withdraw it.

“Emily? Yeah. She’s the best. I know you don’t like her, but she’s really cool.”

“I never said I didn’t like her.”

“No, you didn’t say it, I guess,” he offered in a voice that bordered on complaint. He attempted to quote her: “I think it’s better to take people on their merits.” He crossed over to the opposing tank then, carefully picking the moment so as not to have to look at her. She felt herself slip into his path, obediently following behind. Felt herself reach out and nearly take his shoulders in her hands. But she was tentative in this approach and she never did actually touch him. Instead, she lowered her arms in unison, a drawbridge going down but not quite connecting, and allowed him to slip away from her, like a prayer silently spoken, wondering if the words had found a home.