Man Gone Down

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I know I’m not doing well. I have an emotional relationship with a fish — Thomas Strawberry. My oldest son, C, named him, and that name was given weight because a six-year-old voiced it as though he’d had an epiphany: “He looks like a strawberry.” The three adults in the room had nodded in agreement.

“I only gave you one,” his godfather, Jack, the marine biologist, told him. “If you have more than one, they kill each other.” Jack laughed. He doesn’t have kids. He doesn’t know that one’s not supposed to speak of death in front of them and cackle. One speaks of death in hushed, sober tones — the way one speaks of alcoholism, race, or secret bubble gum a younger sibling can’t have. Jack figured it out on some level from the way both C and X looked at him blankly and then stared into the small aquarium, perhaps envisioning a battle royal between a bowlful of savage little fish, or the empty space left behind. We left the boys in their bedroom and took the baby with us. “They don’t live very long,” he whispered to us. “About six weeks.” That was C’s birthday in February. It’s August, and he’s not dead.

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