Creative Response by Angela Lopez

Author's note:

This was inspired by one of the exercises we did in class, where we conflated a childhood memory of an animal with a realization we had about an adult in our lives. I don’t know that I’m particularly proud of anything in this piece, but I don’t overly dislike anything either.

I will say I like the quiet realization moment at the end, though perhaps the last sentence may be too blatant. I wanted the reader to know what happened without having to state it outright, but I tend to write a great deal of ambiguity so this almost feels like too much to me.

The inclusion of children and the fish was refreshing but a bit of a challenge. I normally write adults, whose dialogue and thoughts can be more complex and whose actions have meaning, so writing children felt too simple at times for my preferred style. Some parts feel more lyrical and pretty, for lack of a better word, but seem to clash with the children. I think the fish’s relation to the deeper emotion of the story comes across well, but again, not something I’m used to including.

--Angela         

Story:

The fish was dead, no two ways about it. They stood there drop-jawed and could not understand.

“Is he dead?”

“Duh, Benny.”

“Shut up, Ryan.”

“Boys, behave,” said their mother from the kitchen.

Wendy sat folded up in her armchair and watched her brothers peer at Bubba. Only a little ago he’d been idling in a plastic cup while she cleaned out his bowl. Now he was as lifeless as the table he lay on.

“Do you think it hurt?” Benny said.

“Probably.” Ryan bumped him out of the way. “I saw him flopping around.”

“Don’t, Ryan.”

“Come on, Wendy, you saw it too!”

Boys. “Doesn’t mean you need to say it like that.” She stared at Bubba for another moment. Probably she ought to pick it up and flush it. Really she ought to make them do it. It had never been her fish.

“Let’s bury him!” said Benny, and before she could get a word out they were off, emptying a matchbox, arguing about what spot in the garden he’d liked looking at best. Wendy just went into the kitchen and watched her mother knead dough for bread.

“So they’re burying him, huh?”

“He was a fish,” she said. “You couldn’t even touch him, or have him cuddle you.”

Her mother shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t love him.”

“When our fish bit it in kindergarten they just told us they’d died and flushed them. We all knew the truth though: the big black one ate them.”

“Really?” said Ryan, coming up behind her. Their mother rolled her eyes.

Benny held up Bubba’s coffin. “Look, Wendy.” There was something absurd about the tableau, a brilliantly blue Beta fish gone dry, nestled amongst wads of dryer lint in a matchbox that was far too big. Something absurd, and yes, maybe something sad.

“Very nice,” she finally said.

“We’re going to put him under the purple flowers,” he said, because they didn’t know the word was iris. Their mother found a large serving spoon to dig with and handed it to Ryan and he took off. Benny lingered, though.

“Do you think Aunt Mara will be mad at us?”

Oh, Benny. Wendy crouched to be eye level. “Why would she be mad at you?”

“Because she gave us Bubba and he died.”

He didn’t like her to kiss him, so she tousled his hair. “No, Benny, she won’t be mad. You don’t get mad in Heaven.”

“Not even a little bit?”

She smiled. “Not even a little bit. She knows you did your best. You took care of him for three months. That’s really good.”

After a moment, he began to smile back. “Okay.” And he went off to join Ryan out back.

Her mother was staring at the dough before her, but Wendy knew she wasn’t really seeing it. She still missed her sister and surely always would, but she seemed to realize Wendy was watching her and pulled on a smile. “That was good, what you told him.”

She shrugged. “It’s probably true, too.”

Now the smile was a little more real. “Go supervise your brothers, would you?”

“Sure, Mom.” She kissed her cheek and started for the back door. “They didn’t see what really happened, though.”

“What do you mean?”

She turned around. “They were drying off the rocks and didn’t see. He jumped out of that cup, Mom. Just jumped out of his good clean water and killed himself.”

Her mother twitched, and when she spoke it was strained. “Go watch your brothers, Wendy.”

What was that about? She almost asked, but her mother began attacking her dough again, with all the ferocity of an inspired baker, so she just backed up and let it go.

But something made her stop at the door and look back again. Her mother had sank down against the cabinets, head bent, folded in on herself. Her whole being seemed to cringe under some unbearable weight that she could not, or would not, share.

Her eyes met Wendy’s and they were bright but deadening, and suddenly Wendy understood.