Remarkably Bright Creatures(103)

The sixth horse. Erik had fixed it.

Cameron leans over, peering at the artifact. “What’s a Dala Horse?”

Tova clicks her tongue. The boy is full to the brim with random knowledge about floorboard grains and snack cake stabilizers and Shakespeare, but how little he knows about his heritage.

She holds the Dala Horse out to him.

He takes it, and she watches him study the delicate carved curves. After a long moment, he looks up. “How did you get the class ring back?”

She smiles. “Marcellus.”





Day 1 of My Freedom


AT FIRST, I SINK LIKE A COLD BUNDLE OF FLESH. MY arms no longer function. I am a chunk of jetsam flung into the sea on a comatose journey toward the seafloor.

Then, with a twitch, my limbs awaken, and I am alive again.

I do not say this to give you false hope. My death is imminent. But I am not dead yet. I have time enough to bask in the vastness of the sea. A day or two, perhaps, to revel in darkness. Dark, like the bottom of the seafloor.

Darkness suits me.

After my release, I swam away from the rocks with haste. Soon, there was a drop-off. Down, down, down. Into the depths, the bowels of the sea, where no light reaches. Where once, as a juvenile, I found a key. Where I return now, to lie with the long-disintegrated bones of a beloved son.

I will be honest: this is not how I expected our time together to end. For nearly four years I was held captive and not a day passed when I did not ruminate on my own death, certain I would expire within the four glass walls of that tank. I never imagined I would know the freedom of the sea again.

How does it feel, you ask? It is comfortable. It is home. I am lucky. I am grateful.

But what will become of my replacement? Soon, Terry will begin cleaning and remodeling my tank. He will make no attempt to conceal these activities from the viewing public; the sign he tapes on the glass will read UNDER CONSTRUCTION: NEW EXHIBIT COMING!

I stopped at her barrel on my journey out. Climbed up the side to peek at her. She is young and badly injured. Terrified, naturally. But this new octopus will have a friend. One that I did not have until the very end. Tova will make sure she is happy, and I would trust Tova with my life. I did trust her with my life, more than once. Just as I trusted her with my death.

Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.





After All


One month later, when the renovations are complete, a moving truck with Texas plates lumbers through Sowell Bay. Tova doesn’t notice. She’s preparing for battle.

“You’re toast,” she calls, unfolding the game board and scrambling the letter tiles. Outside, a brisk fall wind slices across the water. A harbinger of winter, these whitecaps whipping over the water’s colorless surface, which blends seamlessly into the gray sky.

“Please. I’m about to own you.” Cameron emerges from the luxury kitchen in Tova’s new condominium with a tray of sliced cheddar and round crackers. Tova frowns. She’s been lobbying hard for him to try lutefisk with hardtack, which is what a good Swede would eat. But the crackers were on special at Shop-Way, Cameron had explained. Buy-one-get-one. She can’t be upset about that.

Tova knows Terry would’ve been thrilled to keep Cameron on at the aquarium, but the hours and pay just weren’t enough, although Cameron stayed on to train his replacement. Now, Cameron works excruciating, long days for a contractor over at one of those custom homes in Adam Wright and Sandy Hewitt’s neighborhood. He’s talking about taking classes at the community college down in Elland come January, engineering prerequisites. He insists on paying his own way, in spite of Tova’s objections. She’ll work on that.

“You go first,” Tova says, arranging her tiles.

“No, go ahead. Age before beauty,” Cameron teases, studying his own tray while fiddling absently with his father’s class ring, which he wears on his right hand.

She mock-scowls. “I have fifty years of daily crossword puzzles stored in here.” She taps her temple.

Cameron grins. “I don’t know shit, really, but somehow I’m good at these things.”

Shit, really. That’s the sort of language now woven into the tapestry of her life, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. She opens with “JUKEBOX” (seventy-seven points, an incredibly lucky draw). On this, Cameron plays “JAM” (thirty-nine points).

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says quietly.

“Are you kidding? Where else would I be?”

“With your aunt Jeanne.”

Cameron rolls his eyes. “She’s living her best life, trust me. Did I tell you about Wally Perkins and his—”

Tova holds up a hand. “Yes. You did.”

“It’s amazing up here. Aunt Jeanne will for sure come visit. She’s already talking about trying to track down her sister over in Eastern Washington. To which I say, good luck—who knows what mess she’ll dig up there.” Cameron face tenses, but it’s short-lived. “And Elizabeth is already planning to bring the baby up in the spring. Well, Brad, too, of course, but I guess he’s freaking out about taking baby Henry on a plane—germs or something. Elizabeth will talk him into it, though, and Uncle Cam will put the pressure on if needed.” He laughs.