* * *

That Sunday, she wandered through town, wearing a clean dress. She had lived in the pool with Junior for one month, a grey dolphin, a blue pool. In town, she found herself staring at all the different colors: the shocking orange of flowering bougainvillea, a store display of bright limes, a stucco house painted fuchsia. Staring at the house, for a moment she imagined herself living there, the ground floor flooded with water, the deep end of the pool out back for Junior. Here, there would be no more need for Blum or the others. Scientists would travel from far and wide to visit, amazed at the dolphin speaking and the woman doing research. The work so extraordinary, no one could deny it. Perhaps Mother and Kat were here too, but she wasn’t sure. Even in her imagination, the details were a little vague.

So instead she focused on the town’s dry street, at all the objects that did not bob or float.

And the sound. Wearing her glasses, the sounds filled her head: the birds, the wind, people’s voices.

Someone behind her spoke. She concentrated so hard on the clarity of the consonants, she didn’t recognize the word as her name until the second time it was said. Turning, she saw the vet.

He looked so strange. A flat human face with no beak, and he had fur on his head. He labored his way across the ground, upright and clothed, gravity’s captive.

He smiled at her as he walked past, a bag over his shoulder, doing Sunday errands.—Lost in thought?

His voice did not squeak or blat or squeal.

It took her a moment to find words. Her voice, she found, came out a little singsong like she was speaking a nursery rhyme to Junior.—No, thank you.

He slowed down. Unlike a dolphin’s face, his was so strangely mobile.—You O.K.?

She nodded.

He asked—How often do you get out?

Again speech took her a moment.—Out?

—Out of the research center. Out of that pool.

—Oh. Once a week.

He was walking now at her pace, studying her. There was a furrow between his eyes, his head tilted. He asked more questions. How long had she been living with the dolphin? Had the men talked her into it?

She answered each question after a short processing delay, using few words.

His eyes were not brown like a dolphin’s, but green. He kept making her talk. Had she been born on the island? Had she always worked with dolphins? He clearly remembered about her hearing, since he asked each question slowly, his face turned to her. He waited until she answered.

He told her she looked like she’d lost weight, and he brought her to a nearby cafe for sandwiches, making sure she ate every bite.

By the time he walked her back to the research center, her answers were coming to her more easily. As they approached the homearium, he said each week she needed to have a conversation with a human about something other than dolphins and research. Humans needed conversation. They need to be around other humans. He stated this in a quiet voice. He asked her if there was anyone she knew on the island she could talk with. She shook her head.